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A summary of the issue

Early adolescence marks the beginning of a transition from childhood to adulthood, setting the stage for future reproductive health; solidifying gender norms and attitudes. Interventions with very young adolescents can lay the foundations for lifelong healthy relationships, behaviors, and practices.  Although VYAs are beginning to form close relationships with their peers, they still need their family and community to establish boundaries, provide a sense of belonging, support learning and skills development. Nevertheless, VYA girls experience numerous barriers that hinder them from fully realizing their potential. A significant portion of these barriers is related to their sexual and reproductive health issues, early marriage, lack of adolescent-friendly spaces to ensure free discussion on reproductive health issues and practices, menstrual hygiene management including family planning. Her space initiative is a program for adolescent girls age 11-14, girl-only spaces, facilitated by a trained mentor who are young female from the community, girls meet in a ‘safe’ environment and freely express themselves without fear of judgment.

Description of the intervention:

Pathfinder International through USAID Transform: Primary Health Care Activity, in partnership with l Ministry of Health (MOH), initiated the Her Space program in Amhara, Oromia, SNNP, Sidama, and Tigray regions. Her Space initiative targets very young adolescent girls age 11-14, to build their life skills, enhance their social, psychological, emotional, and personal development and ultimately empower them towards their achievement and thereby prevent SRH risks.  With this goal, A total of 106  kebeles were identified from all target regions; more than 200 mentors trained; 5300 very young girls enrolled to be part of this life skill training, the session goes one hour/ week for 10 months.  The training is based on the full consent of parents and has a strong community engagement with parents, families, and gatekeepers to approve girls attending her spaces program.

Lessons learned: conclusions and implications of the intervention or project.

Since the start of the initiative in 2018,  a total of 3263 Graduated from the Her Space program and were encouraged to form their Her space clubs in their respective schools and the rest of 1,950 girls are taking the sessions. Before the session  Parents, brothers, and the communities are sensitized for a day. In General, Parents are engaged during visits to health facilities,  brothers of the girls fill the gaps in the household chores; schools are supporting to provide space for the sessions.  During the sessions, girls were able to visit health facilities; market places; microfinance institutions, and police stations.  The Her space girls open a bank account to start saving by selling eggs to their parents. They know very well why they should spend the saved money.

Program learning

Engaging parents and communities in every step of program implementation facilitate the program's success. When very young adolescents are given the chance, they can use their full capabilities and aspire to continue their educatio