Fort pour le Futur

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

Thiès, Senegal

PROJECT PERIOD

Start Date: May 1, 2019
End Date: April 30, 2022

PROJECT SCALE

38,000 adolescent girls and boys aged 10-19 years old

POPULATION

Thies population: 1,995,037
Thies adolescent population: 458,810
Percentage of adolescents in Thies: 23%

HEALTH FOCUS AREAS

Integrated Nutrition and Sexual Health and Reproductive Rights (SRHR)

OTHER THEMATIC AREAS

Gender

ADOLESCENT SKILLS DEVELOPMENT

Leadership and advocacy

LEAD ORGANIZATION

Nutrition International

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 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

Improve the delivery of nutrition and SRHR services to adolescent boys and girls, and the uptake of the services by both in- and out-of-school adolescents to improve their health and nutrition outcomes.
Strengthen accountability systems and decision making for improved adolescent nutrition and sexual and reproductive health through adolescent-led advocacy activities and adolescent-led accountability mechanisms. Governance and accountability will further be strengthened by improving data collection and analysis to inform decision making and course correction.

Improved delivery of comprehensive, high quality, youth-responsive, and gender-sensitive nutrition and SRHR services for in and out-of-school adolescents.
Enhanced responsiveness of nutrition and SRHR services to the specific needs and priorities of adolescents. Improved use of nutrition and SRHR services and behaviors by adolescents.
38,000 adolescent girls and boys reached with WIFAS and nutrition and SRHR education in and out-of-schools (including street youth resorting to the practice of begging).
Adolescents in and out-of-schools have better access to comprehensive, high quality, user friendly and gender-responsive nutrition and SRHR services, and use them.
Improved knowledge, awareness and self-efficacy of adolescents and their social influencers (parents, teachers and communities) about healthy nutrition and SRHR practices to improve their behaviour and uptake of existing and new services.
Improved availability and quality of gender desegregated adolescent health and nutrition data to inform decision making, improve service accountability and course correction
Improved capacity of adolescents to advocate for and lead on the design and monitoring of interventions and policies for improved adolescent health, SRHR and nutrition in Thiès, through youth responsive nutrition and health services, and to hold decision makers accountable.

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Botnar Healthy Cities for Adolescents Program - Senegal