Background
Despite HIV rates dropping among the adult population in Zambia, recent studies show that incidences of HIV, teenage pregnancies and child marriages have increased among adolescents in the last 2 years. Limited access to youth friendly information and services has been identified as one of the major factors contributing to this increase. While the government has developed policies and strategies to address the reproductive health of young people, there is still a great need for health centers with a youth-friendly approach and affordable services.

About the project
This project was created as complement to the government’s efforts to improve access to youth friendly information and services for SRHR. By training 30 peer educators and 124 teachers in two schools in Lusaka, the project team were able to reach over 1400 young people aged 15-24 and provide them with non-judgemental SRHR information. In addition to this, health care providers at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) in Lusaka were trained on how to integrate a youth friendly approach into their work, to increase young people’s access to existing services.

Results
By the end of the project, UTH had established a youth friendly center on their premises, where adolescents can now go to access SRHR services. The peer educators and trained teachers continue to play a key role in referring adolescents to the health centre and spread comprehensive information on SRHR through newly established clubs, located in both the targeted schools and communities.

Going forward, this project is on the monthly agenda of the Ministry of Health’s working group on adolescent health. This means that the model from this project will continue and keep enabling young people to access high quality, youth friendly sexual and reproductive health care and information.

Year 2016