Advocates for Youth (Advocates) is pleased to
announce an exciting opportunity for youth-serving and/or youth-led
organizations based in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean to partner with
Advocates for Youth to implement programs that seek to improve young people’s
sexual and reproductive health and rights. Advocates for Youth is an
international non-profit organization based in Washington, DC, dedicated to
advancing programs and policies that support young people’s sexual and
reproductive health and rights. Advocates hosts an International Youth Activist
Network (iYAN) through which it provides information, training, and technical
assistance to youth-serving organizations and youth activists working to improve
young people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights in low- and
middle-income countries.
Young people ages 10-24 account for 25 percent
of the world’s population: a total of 1.8 billion, most of who are living in
low- and middle-income countries. Many face challenges to their well-being and
sexual and reproductive health and rights, such as unintended pregnancy; unsafe
abortion; sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV; gender-based
violence; harmful traditional practices like child marriage and female genital
cutting/mutilation; and stigma, discrimination and violence due to sexual
orientation and gender identity and expression. Yet Advocates knows that there
are countless promising programs, dedicated youth-serving organizations, and
determined young leaders working in communities to make a difference for young
people. Through this call for applications, Advocates is seeking to partner
with three in-country organizations interested in implementing sexual and
reproductive health programming with and for young people and in acquiring new
skills, tools and resources from Advocates for Youth.
Advocates’ work is grounded in a philosophy
that it calls the 3 R’s of Rights. Respect. Responsibility. ® whereby young
people have the right to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health
information and services; young people deserve to be treated with respect; and
society has a responsibility to ensure an environment in which young people can
make healthy decisions about their sexual and reproductive health. Advocates
welcomes applicants that share this philosophy and that come with a diversity
of expertise and technical needs and interests. For example, applicants could
include: organizations that may already be working to advance youth sexual and
reproductive health and rights issues but that are seeking to strengthen these
efforts, adopt new strategies, or integrate new youth constituencies, such as
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) youth; organizations that are
already working on sexual and reproductive health issues more generally but are
seeking to meaningfully engage young people and specifically address their
sexual and reproductive health needs; or organizations that are working in
related areas such as maternal health, community development, gender-based
violence, youth development, or youth employment that are interested in
integrating youth sexual and reproductive health and rights programming
into their existing efforts; among others.
Selected organizations will receive a twelve
-month seed grant in the amount of US$10-14,000 to support project
implementation in addition to capacity building and technical assistance from
Advocates for Youth. The deadline for applications is midnight GMT on Thursday, May 22, 2014.
For More Information
please visit: http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/ysrhr 
