The YP Foundation

Context

The YP Foundation works to build young people’s technical capacities to access unbiased, evidence-based information on gender, sexuality, health and rights, enabling them to negotiate cultural and political barriers faced at both community and policy levels. Our work on advocating for changes in young people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) has been focused on strengthening platforms for young people to advocate with decision makers, engaging through dialogue, capacity-building and engaging key community-level stakeholders at local, state and national level. This ensures that young people can effectively participate in policy processes and provide critical input that corresponds with their lived realities. The programme was founded in 2002, using a bi-lingual peer-to-peer education model that primarily addressed an in-school population of urban youth, with a key focus on addressing women and girls and reducing gender-based violence and discrimination. In 2006, the programme expanded to work with young people from peri-urban and rural areas, focusing on adolescents and young people living in at-risk contexts (street and slum children, young people living with HIV, young injecting drug users, children of female sex workers, young people living in BPL (below the poverty line) communities) through peer-to-peer education and policy consultative processes. The YP Foundation is currently working primarily in the National Capital Region (NCR) and in Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow and Jhansi districts), through a model of community-based partnerships that focuses on skill-sharing, capacity-building workshops and supporting youth-led, state-level advocacy efforts. We have collaborated with youth groups and young activists from 18 states across India, including Punjab, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Kashmir, Nagaland, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Meghalaya and Bihar.
Website
www.theypfoundation.org
Area of Work
India
Contact Person
Mohona Chatterjee

Approaches to implementing Community monitoring/accountability

The YP Foundation strongly believes in developing youth-led and youth friendly systems of monitoring both the progress and impact of its community programmes; changes affected at policy levels through engaging young people are also measured through this process.
Thus, we work on strengthening capacities of young people; and mobilizing and collectivizing them to enable them to advocate for sexual and reproductive health and rights on their own be it within their families or with community gatekeepers or government officials. For instance, in Delhi, as part of the KYBKYR Peer Education Programme, we have been working with teachers and parents in various schools across the city and with out of school young people, we work with key gatekeepers (for example, home staff) to ensure that they are accountable in providing essential information to young people.

Results and Lessons

State-Level: 
  • A group of 20 youth leaders in Lucknow and Jhansi have been trained on sexuality education and sexual and reproductive rights. This group is advocating for the implementation of sexuality education at the community level with young people as well as social workers, schoolteachers, health service providers etc.

National-Level: 
  • TYPF serves on UNESCO’s Global Advisory Group for Sexuality Education, learnings of young people and partner organizations in the programme are being documented and are feeding into the South Asia Strategy for Scaling Up Sexuality Education.
  • Know Your Body Know Your Rights Programme Model was published by UNAIDS in 2011 as a ‘Community Innovation’ to achieve SRHR for young women and girls through the HIV response, launched at the International AIDS 2011 Conference.
  • Data from the consultations held, as well as strategies for using digital media with young people have been requested by UNICEF (to feed into their evaluation of the Adolescence Education Programme for NACO) and UNAIDS as part of their New Generation Leadership Strategy in India.
  • Request to review Peer Education Modules by NCERT for their Master Training of Trainers.
  • Data and outcomes are being used in a pilot to strengthen school mechanisms and train teachers to create ‘effective teacher-student learning environments’ in MCD Schools in 12 Zones of Delhi (one school per zone) in partnership with NCERT, UNESCO, Save the Children, Oxfam, SARD, Plan India and MCD.