Population Council Projects | India: Working Group on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

PROJECT
India: Working Group on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

Since August 2003 the Working Group on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights has been meeting every two months at the Population Council's New Delhi office.

The group was formed because a number of individuals and organizations engaged in research and programs in India that focus on young people's sexual and reproductive health and rights expressed the need for a group that would facilitate the exchange of ideas and information on a regular basis. The working group enables members to draw on each other’s strengths and insights and encourages interdisciplinary collaboration.

Specific objectives of the working group are to:

assemble evidence-based lessons for programming that draw on existing evidence;
provide a forum for sharing ideas and information that can inform future programming;
act as a resource for the other members and provide input into the other members’ areas of work;
act as a sounding board or peer reviewers for work in progress; and
come together to make evidence-based public statements as necessary.

At the request of the group, the Population Council serves as its secretariat. Meetings are well attended (with an average of more than 20 participants at each), with presentations at each meeting made by working group members on a range of topics, including legal remedies available to adolescents, results from research on adolescent sexual and reproductive health, communication efforts to address youth needs, interventions that use livelihoods as an entry point to address adolescent reproductive and sexual health needs, and the needs of disabled youth.

The working group now has some 50 members, representing a diverse set of organizations, including Child In Need Institute (CINI), Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action (CREA), Don Bosco, Human Rights Law Network, Ideosync Media Combine, International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Lawyers Collective, Mamta, National Foundation for India (NFI), Panos Institute, Pratidhi, Sangini (India) Trust, Swasthya, Talking About Reproductive and Sexual Health Issues (TARSHI), UNICEF, and the World Health Organization Regional Office for South-East Asia (WHO/SEARO).

Location

Delhi, India

Duration

August 2003–ongoing

Population Council researchers

Vijaya Nidadavolu, Shireen Jejeebhoy, Shveta Kalyanwala, K.G. Santhya

Donor

Population Council