Near East Foundation

Period: 2007-present
Primary Donor(s): Ford Foundation

Now in it's third phase, the youth sexuality and reproductive health project has broken barriers by taking on a highly sensitive subject--the ignorance of which is at the root of highly dysfunctional social relations. The project aims to enhance life-skills and sexual knowledge and attitudes among youths aged 10-19, with the ultimate aim of improving their quality of health and wellbeing.

During Phase I, the project team focused on initiating dialogue around sexuality education for children, adolescents, and youth among a limited number of civil society organizations and youth groups; where the project partnered with four local NGOs on selecting and training a core team of trainers to educate youth on sexuality and life-skills. During Phase II, NEF's work emphasized outreach for practitioners, NGOs, parents, children, and adolescents. Beginning in four locations in urban Cairo, the project has expanded its outreach to a total of 14 NGOs in five governorates: Cairo, Giza, Qalyoubia, Minia, Sohag and Aswan. The thrid phase will emphasize raising public awareness, achieving broader scale, and changing policies that perpetuate lack of knowledge.

A technical curriculum on the topics of sexuality education and reproductive health awareness was also developed, tested and used extensively throughout both Phases of the project to train the core team of youth care-givers. The project team also conducted a comprehensive assessment of children's perceptions of sexuality issues, based on which a simplified version of the technical curriculum was adapted to train youth groups within the age bracket 10-19 supported by the twelve partner NGOs (Phase I and II NGOs). In-turn, young people trained by the project took leading roles in disseminating knowledge, behavior and skills acquired through the project's workshops and counseling sessions to their small communities and peers. To date, the project trained a core group of 57 social workers from the twelve targeted NGOs (core teams), 58 young women and men within the age bracket (18-25), and 102 children within the age bracket (12-16). The children targeted were the called 'Champions' as they educated 143 of their peers. Champions were supported and empowered by the project to team to act as multipliers in knowledge dissemination with regards to sexuality and reproductive health issues of children and youth.

The project also raised the awareness of almost 4700 young men and women and 1500 parents about sexuality education and reproductive health of youth. Outreach activities also included the utilization of new media to information about reproductive health and sexuality as well as other issues of youth concern.