Young People Supporting Each Other, Safeguard Young People Programme (SYP) in Angola

How the Safeguard Young People Programme (SYP) is helping  young people in Angola face lack of information and employment skills through community led behaviour change interventions,  empowering adolescents to enable them to lead healthy lives, protect themselves from STIs (including HIV),prevent unwanted pregnancy, unsafe abortions, early marriage, Gender Based Violence  and harmful cultural practices.

CENTER FOR YOUTH SUPPORT (CAJ) MACULUSSO, LUANDA - "Joining SYP helped me to overcome an internal battle where I thought I had no solution. I live with someone very close to me who has been HIV-positive for many years and being an activist helped me to help that person, sharing the correct information from everything I have learnt about the disease. Today the person has accepted to follow all the protocol so that she can be healthy," confessed Sílvia Francisco, a member of SYP and an activist at the Cazenga Youth Support Centre.

Clapping and singing "Shine, we shine" is the warm way in which the members of each youth activist led social  mobilizer activity  show respect and affection to other members and visitors. In Angola, where youths are facing tough realities, moments of peer to peer support and caring are crucial for building essential hope for the future. Unemployment rate is high in Angola, and particularly higher among young people aged 15-34 years (31%) and aged 15-24 years (above 35%).Gender-based violence remains a major issue, with about 33 per cent of women aged 15 to 49 experiencing some type of physical or sexual violence.  The Safeguard Young People Programme (SYP) aims to support young people and adolescents with key knowledge and life skills to improve their decision making in this difficult context. Already 90 Social Mobilizers from youth CSOs have been  trained with knowledge on SRH, GBV, STI prevention including HIV and life skills so they can empower groups of   adolescents and youth. These activists  will lead  community benches in 5 Provinces. These community engagement and peer to peer behavior change activities will reach  10,265 youth this year.

Angola is home to a very youthful population, with 47.1% of Angolans under the age of 15 and 66.4% under the age 25 (INE, 2015). Community led social mobilization is key to reach out of school youths as gender imbalance in the education sector remains, it was found that 17% of young people never attended an education system with a gender breakdown of 11% for men and 23% for women.Angola has a widespread HIV epidemic with a prevalence in the adult population aged 15-49 years of 2%, with 2.6% in females and 1.2% in males.

"As an activist, it has been a constant battle to transmit information about sexuality, because there are still parents who think that talking about sexuality with adolescents and young people, is leading them to practice sex. But with our dynamics and methods that we have learnt through SYP, we always manage to pass on the message of protection and delay teenage courtship", says Silvia Francisco, a member of SYP and an activist at the Youth Support Centre in Cazenga.

The SYP programme was designed to address the sexual and reproductive health and rights needs of adolescents and young people.

SYP aims to empower adolescents and youth to enable them to lead healthy lives, to protect themselves from STIs (including HIV), preventing unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, early marriage, GBV and harmful cultural practices.

In Angola, 126 Teachers in 2 Provinces from Luanda and Namibe were trained on Sexual Education, Menstrual Health and SRH for in-school training of girls and boys reaching 6,220 students in 40 schools with  inclusive and quality in-school SRH classes.

SYP simultaneously aims to promote inclusion, gender equality norms and protective behaviours, contributing to achieving universal access to sexual and reproductive health and the realisation of reproductive rights for adolescents and youths in five provinces of Angola.The program  aims to accelerate efforts to reduce teenage and unplanned pregnancies among youth and women, with the corresponding benefits of investment in education, promoting their empowerment to reach their full potential.

The focus of activities is on the group of adolescents and youth aged 10-24 years. Secondary beneficiaries are adult women and men, health professionals, teachers, community and religious leaders.

In Angola, the SYP program is supported by the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Embassy of the Netherlands, and aims to reach  60,000  adolescents and youths  by 2026.