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TRANSITIONS TO ADULTHOOD Assessing Current Approaches to Youth Programming Recognizing the dearth of studies investigating youth programs and the need for a better understanding of how such programs work, in the mid-1990s the Population Council launched a multi-country study to determine whether these approaches were actually reaching the adolescents they targeted. Several assessments of youth centers and related peer-education programs were undertaken in Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. The studies examined 30 youth centers using mini-situation analyses, retrospective analyses of service statistics, catchment area surveys, and, in South Africa only, a cost analysis. A major finding of these assessments was that more boys than girls are reached by youth programs. Centers in Kenya and Zimbabwe, for example, reach twice as many boys as girls. Moreover, older boys, many of whom are outside the target age range, tend to dominate the centers. Because of their association with reproductive health and family planning, centers are often stigmatized as places for the sexually active with the result that many young people—especially girls—do not want to be associated with them. Peer education is another popular approach to reaching young people with reproductive health information. Council staff and collaborators are mounting a series of focused studies in selected African countries to examine the quality, cost, and effectiveness of peer education for adolescents. Locations Population Council researchers Non-Council collaborators Donors This page updated |
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