Background
For a long time, the Tuv province in Mongolia completely lacked sexual and reproductive health care services for adolescents. The local hospital had a room prepared and health care professionals were trained, but the services never actually started functioning. Because of this, young people in the area lacked information about contraceptive use and were at high risk of sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS and unwanted pregnancies.

About the project
This project was created to provide counseling and basic youth friendly reproductive health services to adolescents attending the high school in Tuv province. The project team trained a counselor and established a youth friendly counseling room at the local hospital where the students could go to access the services. The team also provided sexual education to the students by using forum theatre, group discussions and questionnaires.

Results
1200 individual face-to-face consultations and 1950 phone consultations were provided to adolescents between 2007 and 2011, as a direct outcome of this project. 2500 condoms and 350 contraceptive pills were also distributed during this period and the adolescents’ knowledge about sexuality and reproduction has improved. 54% of the students had basic knowledge about contraceptives before the project, which increased to 75% after the project.

Year: 2007