Description:
This project seeks to increase the equality, agency and well-being of adolescents in the rural and remote region of Tabora to exercise their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and nutrition rights. The Building Rights for Improved Girls’ Health in Tanzania (BRIGHT) project focuses particularly on empowering girls who are young, in-and-out of school or pregnant. Project activities include: (1) utilizing nutrition-specific interventions, including iron and folic acid supplementation, as an entry point to provide young or pregnant girls with equitable, gender-responsive and adolescent-friendly sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), nutrition and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) protection services; (2) using youth-centered, feminist and rights-based interventions to empower girls of different age groups to respond to the distinct barriers faced by young adolescent girls (10-14 years of age), out-of-school older adolescents (17-19 years of age), nomadic and pastoral communities and hard to reach vulnerable populations such as pregnant adolescents; (3) building agency and empowering adolescents (10-19 years of age) to exercise their sexual and reproductive health and nutrition rights; (4) promoting a pandemic-responsive and resilient health system by improving health systems and infrastructure; (5) supporting and delivering an integrated package of SRHR and nutrition services, including family planning/contraception; gender-based violence prevention and response services, adolescent-friendly antenatal, postnatal and post-abortion care, and nutrition support and counseling; (6) promoting gender equality and income generation and entrepreneurial skills for girls and life skills training to support out-of-school older adolescent girls; (7) strengthening gender-responsive and adolescent-friendly governance and accountability systems and structures; and (8) increasing adolescent participation in community-based accountability platforms and redistributing the burden of unpaid care by addressing deeply entrenched social norms.
The project aims to directly reach 244,400 girls and 225,600 boys 10 to 19 years of age (comprising 80% of in-school adolescents and 50% of out-of-school adolescents in Tabora); 596,300 adults (comprising 50% of adults in Tabora and including community, religious and traditional leaders, parents and caregivers of adolescents, service providers and key policy and lawmakers). The project also aims to reach 31,000 pregnant adolescent girls with nutrition counselling and support and 127,000 adolescent girls with contraceptives, to avert 4,000 to 6,000 cases of anaemia among pregnant girls, 75,000 unintended pregnancies and 17,000 unsafe abortions, all of which currently contribute to maternal mortality and poor birth outcomes.
Expected Results:
The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) strengthened gender-responsive and adolescent-friendly governance and accountability systems and structures, which respect, protect and fulfill the SRHR and nutrition rights of young or pregnant girls; (2) enhanced provision of high-quality, gender-responsive, integrated, adolescent-friendly nutrition and SRHR information, services and platforms which address the needs of girls, particularly young pregnant girls; and (3) increased agency to equitably use and demand quality gender-responsive, adolescent-friendly, integrated nutrition, life-skills and sexual and reproductive health information, services and platforms by girls, particularly pregnant girls.