Adolescent Health

As part of its mission to make a lasting, positive change in the lives of children in need, Save the Children launched an Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health program in 1999 to focus on the growing reproductive and sexual health concerns of young people around the world. Currently, we are implementing 10 country programs in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Each of these programs enables young people to adopt healthy practices and use quality services that meet their health needs. Because adolescents often do not have the capacity or authority to make decisions that affect their reproductive lives, we also work with key adults, such as parents, teachers, religious and community leaders, and health-service providers to help them understand adolescents’ needs and engage adolescents in dialogue and decision making.

To reach our goal of improving the reproductive and sexual health of young people, our programs work to:

• Improve the availability and accessibility of high-quality, youth-friendly reproductive and sexual health services;
• Empower young people with improved knowledge, attitudes, and skills so that they can protect their health;
• Create a positive social environment that enables young people to make healthy decisions and adopt healthy practices; and
• Improve the policy environment for adolescent reproductive and sexual health by partnering with government ministries, collecting and disseminating data, and advocating for the establishment and/or enforcement of laws, such as age at marriage, protection against sexual abuse and child trafficking, and service accessibility and quality guidelines tailored to young people.

Our work is grounded on three key principles:

• Young people are important partners in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of programs that deliver youth-friendly information and services.
• Young people have capabilities and assets that we need to build upon in our programs.
• Young people are not homogeneous; rather they represent a diversity of groups and ages. Their needs may differ between groups and will vary and change as the youth grow and develop.