Title: Promoting adolescent and youth reproductive health
Course: Adolescent and Youth Reproductive Health - Ethiopia (Full)

Promoting adolescent and youth reproductive health

In Study Sessions 1 and 2 you learned that young people are especially at risk of multiple health and social problems, mainly arising from their risky behaviours. Young people can be influenced to have positive healthy behaviour provided they get sufficient support from their families, health workers and communities. Studies conducted in the years 2005 to 2006 showed that only 15% of young people living in rural areas were enrolled in secondary school and that youth reproductive health programmes in Ethiopia tend to only reach older, unmarried, urban boys who are in school. So the most vulnerable members of the population, namely rural youth (86 %), married girls and out-of-school adolescents were missed by these programme efforts. So in this Module emphasis will be given to the importance of targeting vulnerable groups of young people to get the best results from your limited resources.

Health Promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over and to improve their health, which includes sexual and reproductive health. Young people need interventions to decrease and to alleviate their vulnerability. These include information and skills, a safe and supportive environment and appropriate and accessible health and counselling services.

Health promotion could be conducted in various settings such as schools and in the community and at health posts. In all situations, it is important to keep in mind that different groups of young people need different approaches and messages depending on their age, living and family arrangements, and school status. In the following paragraphs you will understand the specific issues that you need to address, separately, for young people aged 10–14, 15–19 and 20–24 years, orphans and other vulnerable children.