Youth Friendly Health Services in Urban-Slums
A majority of the interventions related to young people (10-24 yrs) are limited to information, education, life skills and advocacy related activities. There is very limited experience in operationalising youth/ adolescent friendly Sexual and Reproductive Health, including HIV prevention services with special reference to India. Parivar Seva Sanstha, a national NGO, recently designed and successfully implemented an innovative model on “Youth Friendly Services” or YFS in slums of Jaipur. The focus was on dual protection of young people against STI / HIV and unwanted pregnancy by ensuring greater access to youth friendly services, with community involvement. MIPD provided the technical input in operationalisation of the project.
The pilot was supported by the Asia Pacific Division (APD) of the UNFPA, as a part of a larger project in three selected countries, namely India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The aim being to develop evidence based demonstration models for up-scaling Youth Friendly Services for Sexual and Reproductive Health and HIV prevention in the region. It was planned that the developed model, if successful, would provide inputs to the ongoing work in the IPD States and RCH-II in the India country programme. The project evolved was Value Added and did not duplicate any existing activities.
Under the project, Parivar Seva set up an accessible and friendly pilot facility called ‘Aadhar’ (foundation) offering health services and counseling to young people, both men and women in the age group 10-24 years, in the Jawahar Nagar Kacchi Basti (Slums) of Jaipur city in Rajasthan, covering a population of 50,000. The project has completed its tenure of one and half years in December 2006.
Since January 2007, the project is being supported by Parivar Seva Sanstha and managed by Managment Institute of Population and Development. The activities under the project have been expanded by incorporating additional youth related strategic interventions, as stated in the RCH-II SPIP document of Rajasthan. The focus is to develop a comprehensive but replicable model to cater to the sexual and reproductive needs of young living in urban slums.
