Despite progress in global health initiatives, adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) continue to face disproportionate challenges in accessing healthcare services, particularly HIV prevention and treatment.
In 2022, UNAIDS reported that 46% of all new HIV infections were among women and girls (all ages) worldwide, with nearly 4000 AGYWs getting infected every week in Sub-Saharan Africa1. Adolescent girls and young women face multifaceted challenges hindering their access to essential health services, including sexual reproductive health and rights, financial autonomy, and societal and cultural barriers and norms. Moreover, a lack of basic knowledge about sex and restricted access to sexual and reproductive health services for all genders exacerbate their vulnerabilities. This alarming data underscores the urgent need for comprehensive action to address systemic disparities and ensure the well-being of young women worldwide.
Recognising the need to intensify its efforts in bridging these gaps and achieving more equitable health outcomes, Y+ Global, in collaboration with Paediatric AIDS Treatment for Africa (PATA), HER Voice Fund, and with support from the Global Fund, officially launched a comprehensive curriculum known as the We Are The Change Curriculum: A Capacity Building Curriculum for Community-Based Organizations Working with and for Adolescent Girls and Young Women. This curriculum provides Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) with the tools, knowledge, and resources necessary to enhance their capacity and effectiveness in addressing the needs of AGYW within their communities.
This virtual launch was held on 12 March, with more than 80 participants from across the globe joining to commemorate International Women’s Day. This year's theme, “Inspire Inclusion”, symbolically aligns with the curriculum objective as it addresses capacity strengthening for all AGYW in their diversity, including marginalised youth such as lesbian, bisexual, non-confirming, transgender people, sex workers, young people who use drugs, teenage and young mothers, handicapable and disabled youth.
We Are The Change was co-developed through a participatory process with 37 AGYW-led and serving organisations in Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi and Namibia. The curriculum covers nine core components that are fundamental building blocks to strengthening CBOs' capacity to attract donor support and lead implementing programs within their communities. This includes governance, finance, sustainability, human resources, monitoring and evaluation, AGYW programs and much more.
"AGYW-led organisations are normally small and often lack support in the formulation of fundamental documents like constitutions and policies for governance and control. 'We are the Change' is a crucial tool to address those gaps for organisations to ensure organisational efficiency and management."Nthabeleng Nts’ekalle
HER Voice Fund Ambassador for Lesotho
At the launch, partners and advocates shared how CBOs can adapt the AGYW curriculum to build their capacity to strengthen governance, policies, and resource mobilisation to lead health-related initiatives within their communities. Participants showed interest in having the curriculum in different languages.
“The AGYW curriculum was carefully curated to be an essential tool to guide and prepare AGYW-led and AGW-serving organisations to be fully functional so they can meet the requirements for donor funding. This tool is adaptable across countries and can be used to build the capacity and empower these communities.”Matseliso Mokitimi
Program Lead for Mosepele Foundation Development Forum
The launch came to a close, with participants being given access to the curriculum, which is available to download and the online course on PATA’s e-learning platform.