Sexual Health Education for Better Awareness (SHEBA) – Ethiopia (EMSA); Denmark (IMCC)

Name of the activity: Sexual Health Education for Better Awareness (SHEBA)

Country/NMO: Ethiopia (EMSA); Denmark (IMCC)

Program: Comprehensive Sexuality Education

Contact information: [email protected]

Type of the activity: Capacity Building

General description:

Our objective is to ensure that intimate relationships among youth in Ethiopia are gender equal and sexual practices are healthy. We will achieve this by ensuring a strong and engaged volunteer base that is also gender equal. This volunteer base will increase awareness on sexual rights and safe sex practices among the target group through participatory and innovative methods at school workshops.
Further, we will use the knowledge we gained of our primary target group consisting of adolescent boys and girls in rural areas to facilitate better opportunities for the them to advocate for actions to target local SRHR issues and gender inequality. We will work actively to ensure our activities will be integrated in already existing school structures to ensure the effect will be long lasting.

Focus area:

Peer Education with adolescents and young people on a variety of topics pertaining to Sexual Health

Problem statement:

The main development challenge our partnership project addresses is the lack of gender equality in intimate relationships among youth in Ethiopia.Due to Ethiopia’s cultural conditions regarding gender roles, young women and girls are particularly vulnerable in relation to sexual and reproductive health. This is especially veracious in rural areas. A variety of gender roles and harmful traditional practices in Ethiopian societies have led to decreased reproductive health such as girls not having the knowledge or skills to say no to sex, youth not recognizing the rights of women and girls, family structures that encourage or force girls to get married and have children at a very young age, and girls’ lack of decision making power regarding relationships and having children.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

The primary target groups
The primary target group of the project are adolescent girls and boys at the age of 14-18 in schools in rural areas around Addis Ababa and Hawassa. Our goal is to improve awareness about gender equality in intimate relations among this group. More specifically, our goal is that in 2017 EMSA will have conducted six school workshops with a total of 120 students aged 14-18 years in the rural areas around Addis Ababa and Hawassa. The three schools selected within each LMO will be chosen on the basis of being in a rural area, and having classes of at least 20 children in the age group we are targeting. In total 36 EMSA members will be trained to conduct this. We wish to visit the same students several times at each school to ensure easier and more effective monitoring and evaluation of our activities.
The secondary target groups
● Volunteer medical students
● Families of the target group
● The society of the target group
The EMSA students benefit by receiving training and experience on how to teach reproductive health issues using innovative methods. In addition, a diffusion of the communication and learning techniques and mindsets that are presented during the workshop from the students to their families and community could benefit the whole population in the area.

Objectives and indicators of success:

Immediate objective 1
We have a strong and engaged volunteer base that is also gender equal
Immediate objective 2
There is an increased awareness on sexual rights and safe sex practices among the target group.
Immediate objective 3
Fewer youth and adolescents will be practicing unsafe sex
Success criteria 1
a) 25 youth models attend at least 50 % of the workshops in every LMO.
b) At least 40 % girls in the working group and among the Youth Models in each LMO.
Success criteria 2
a) By the end of the project, 70 % of the participating students have expressed having increased awareness on on sexual rights and safe sex practices
b) By the end of the project, all 50 % of the biology curriculums has enhanced its focus on SRHR.
c) By the end of the project, all biology teachers in the targeted schools have received training in SRHR.
Success criteria 3
a) By the end of the project, students experience better access to contraceptives and less stigma surrounding the use of it
b) By the end of the project, 50 % of students experience that their sexual practises have become safer

Methodology:

a. Implementation of new recruitment strategy
b. 2 Training of Trainers workshops of Youth Models and working group members
c. All Youth Model’s meet 3 times for evaluation and team-building and sharing of experiences with former Youth Models at the beginning, middle and end of the project
d. Youth Models within the LMO meet 9 times during the project for social event in a combination with discussions about the project
e. 4 workshops and trainings on SRHR to 20 students at 6 local schools per year, educating a total of 240 students
f. 1 workshop and training on SRHR to 3 teachers at 6 local schools during the project
g. 1 workshop on SRHR advocacy in 6 already established student clubs per year
h. 2 walks a year in the two cities of Addis Ababa and Hawassa (at the International Women’s Day and the World AIDS Day)
i. 4 small coordinating meetings with stakeholders
j. 12 networking meetings between school (student clubs) and SRHR NGO (contraceptive provider)
k. Host 2 conference days together with student clubs and NGO’s to hand out and create awareness about contraceptives at the schools included in the project
l. Hand-out baseline questionnaire about access to contraceptives and follow up questionnaires by the end of the project

Plans for evaluation:

This will be achieved using surveys, which will be conducted before (baseline) and after school workshop. These surveys will then be discussed by the EMSA members in order to make appropriate adjustments of the project. They will produce a short report for each of these assessments. A midway evaluation and a final evaluation is included in the project. During these sessions, Team Self Reviews will be used in order to harness the information stored in the people working with the project, namely the youth models, and the members of IMCC Global and EMSA. A written review will be produced and shared within and between the two partners.We will also evaluate the project based on a set of indicators agreed on before hand. These indicators will be measured 1) before the project implementation in a baseline study, 2) during the project implementation as part of the midway evaluation, and 3) after the project implementation as part of the final evaluation. We will do our best to have the individuals participating in the baseline study, the midway- and the final evaluation.