Resilient & Empowered Adolescents & Young People (READY+)
READY+2 (2021-2026) builds on lessons learnt from READY+ (2016-2020). The programme will directly reach 35,614 adolescents and young people living with or most affected by HIV and support them to become more resilient, empowered, and knowledgeable and have the bodily autonomy, freedom, and agency to realise their sexual and reproductive health and rights.
READY+2 includes prevention components with greater focus on mental health and reaching adolescents and young people in all their diversity. READY+2 will be implemented in Eswatini, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe with targeted interventions planned for Malawi, Zambia and Angola.
Within READY, PATA provides technical assistance at selected health facilities and provides training for health providers in adolescent friendly services, HIV-SRHR integration, and advocacy in action. This is complemented with on-site mentoring, quality improvement planning and monitoring, and the integration of C3 methodologies.
READY+ objectives
Resilient and empowered A&YPLHIV have increased knowledge and agency to make healthier and informed choices about their bodies and their lives
- Provide Information, education and communication tools and materials that provide A&YPLHIV with tailored and relevant guidance
- Create safe spaces for A&YPLHIV to meet, learn and build trust in the information they receive, as well as develop skills in managing emotions and navigating risks and vulnerability
- Peer Support to provide information, advice, and guidance
Safe and supportive communities advance gender equality, including the sexual and reproductive health and rights and well-being of A&YPLHIV
- Community dialogues to better understand needs of HIV-positive adolescents
- Community fora to work with teachers, services providers, faith leaders and key stakeholders to address gaps and build improved support
- Parent /Caregiver dialogues and communication support
Increased access to, and use of, high quality, integrated and comprehensive HIV, SRHR, and mental health and well-being services by A&YPLHIV, that are responsive to their specific needs
- Training and sensitization of health providers in HIV-SRHR integration and health advocacy
- Operational quality improvement plans developed and implemented on the integration of HIV and SRH services
- Adolescents and young people living with HIV design, monitor and accredit services
- Clinic-community collaboration
Greater accountability of decision makers and policy makers to the SRHR needs of A&YPLHIV
- Communicating evidence of the needs, desires, risks and barriers of A&YPLHIV
- Generating evidence for advocacy
- Youth mentorship
- Advocacy strategies and accountability
Resilient and empowered A&YPLHIV, have improved skills and better choices/options to secure livelihoods
Resources
An estimated 430,000 adolescents and young people (15 to 24years) in East and Southern Africa are acquiring HIV every year often as a result of denied rights to critical services due to age restrictions, the need for parental consent, lack of accurate information, use of alcohol and drugs, sexual debut, multiple partners, unsafe sexual practices, and poor access to relevant and responsive services.
Negative cultural attitudes to young people’s sexuality, gender norms and practices, violence, poverty, and the lack of participation of young people in decisions that affect their lives, all impact on their long-term health. Further still, as Adolescents and young people living with HIV (A&YPLHIV) explore their sexual identity and form relationships, they are faced with disclosure to partners; understanding options for effective contraception while on ART; safe sex, safer conception, absence of psychosocial support and mental wellbeing leading to loss to follow up, poor treatment adherence, poor SRH; and risks of MTCT, a key driver of the epidemic. Specific attention on this group of young people continues to be a worrying gap in the global HIV response; there have been limited responses in the region around improving SRHR for A&YPLHIV, and little attention to the significance of their health outcomes on the epidemic.
READY+ partners
