Botnar Healthy Cities for Adolescents Program - Senegal
Fort pour le Futur: Improving adolescent nutrition, health and wellbeing in Thiès, Senegal
PROJECT NAME
Fort pour le Futur: Improving adolescent nutrition, health and wellbeing in Thiès, Senegal
CITY, COUNTRY
PROJECT PERIOD
Start Date: May 1, 2019
End Date: April 30, 2022
PROJECT SCALE
POPULATION
Thies population: 1,995,037
Thies adolescent population: 458,810
Percentage of adolescents in Thies: 23%
HEALTH FOCUS AREAS
OTHER THEMATIC AREAS
ADOLESCENT SKILLS DEVELOPMENT
LEAD ORGANIZATION
About Thiès
Thiès, located 70 km from Dakar, is one of the largest secondary cities in Senegal, and is a busy crossroads for the people of the sub-region. Adolescents make up a third of the city’s population. High poverty rates and poor nutrition and SRHR services in Thiès leave adolescents particularly vulnerable to malnutrition and to sexually transmitted infections (STIs), HIV-AIDS, early pregnancy, drug abuse, sexual abuse, female genital mutilation and gender-based violence.
About Nutrition International
Nutrition International (NI) is a global organization dedicated to delivering proven nutrition interventions to those who need them most. In Senegal, NI has been working to improve the nutritional status of adolescents, women and children since 2006. NI seeks to integrate nutrition interventions into existing development programs, platforms or networks that do not already focus on nutrition. Through its Senegal Country Office, NI implements a number of programs that aim to improve the nutritional status and health of some of the most vulnerable populations in the country.
Project Summary
The provision of SRHR services for adolescents in Thiès is very low. With no functioning youth service facilities, adolescents have very limited access to services and information about their health and well-being. Pregnancy among adolescent girls in Thiès region is 12.9% (2014, UNICEF Key Statistics Brochure, 2016) with a low contraceptive usage rate for girls aged 15-19 of 2.2% (continuous DHS 2016) and high rates of early marriage, early pregnancy and childbirth.
Fort pour le Futur
Fort pour le Futur is a multi-stakeholder model for integrated nutrition and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) services for adolescents in and out-of-school in Thies. Vibrant local civil society will use their platform to engage adolescents on their nutrition and SRHR needs, and build their capacity to advocate for and actively participate in the design and delivery of relevant interventions and policies, and to hold decision makers and service providers accountable. The project will leverage the collective experience, knowledge and networks of NI and partners to develop and strengthen sustainable and equitable systems to improve the nutrition, health and wellbeing of adolescents and show how they can be scaled-up to other urban contexts. parents, teachers, community leaders, school administrators, and local government service providers.
Consortium partners
INGO: (Lead) Nutrition International (NI), Senegal
Public sector: City of Thiès; Ministry of Health; Ministry of Education; Ministry of Youth
Civil society: Reseau Siggil Jigéen, Youth and Population Development Network of Senegal (RESOPOPDEV), AfriYAN, J-Gen and YWA
Private sector: Network of private, religious and Catholic schools. Collaboration opportunities with telecommunications networks