Nurturing the resilience of mobile youth to navigate health and wellbeing crises in southern Africa

BACKGROUND

In South Africa and Zambia mobile adolescents and young people (mAYP) make up a significant number of the people who migrate. Migration limits mAYP access to health services including access to sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) information and quality services, leading to their poor sexual health. Addressing this situation requires an interdisciplinary approach rooted in African-led research, placing mAYP at the centre of defining and solving the problem.

In our partnership we will address the SRHR of young migrants by creating lasting interventions with young people to raise awareness of their eligibility for SRHR services and promote the responsiveness of those services, working with health providers, responding to demand from key national stakeholders and drawing on past work.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

We aim to conduct policy-relevant research to enhance mobile adolescents and young people’s ability to navigate access to SRHR services, thereby contributing to their improved health and wellbeing. Our objectives are to:

a) Synthesise evidence that examines causation in youth-led health research to identify effective approaches and emergent processes to enhance health systems responsiveness and improve access to SRHR services for mAYP in southern Africa.

b) Anchored by youth-led social mobilisation, to co-develop and implement interventions with young people that support mAYP to recognise their candidacy and access SRHR services, working with health-care stakeholders to identify ways to make care more responsive to mAYP requirements.

c) Co-produce and use a participatory monitoring and evaluation process in the piloting of the co-developed interventions, assessing their feasibility (including resource needs), acceptability, and equitable reach.

d) Continuously engage and involve communities and other stakeholders to encourage and facilitate youth-led mobilisation to nurture their resilience and support facility/provider responsiveness to the health and well-being needs of mAYP.

e) Consolidate and strengthen South African and Zambian researcher’ skills and agency to navigate the inequitable power dynamics in health research, promoting their visibility and shared intellectual leadership across Zambia, South Africa, and in the UK, to influence practice and policy in relation to the health and wellbeing needs of mAYP.

METHODS

Y1: Evidence synthesis of literature and databases/websites and existing data sets. Preparatory co-development of theory of change with young people engaged as advisers.

Y2: Rapid participatory qualitative methods, a baseline survey and establishment of a qualitative methods cohort. Co-development of intervention(s), and processes for monitoring and evaluation. Intervention piloting starts.

Y3: Continued qualitative and quantitative data collection for participatory process monitoring of the intervention and evaluation.

Y4: Analysis and writing up, case studies of interventions co-developed with mAYP and other stakeholders and findings disseminated. Community engagement and involvement, and training and capacity strengthening activities planned across all years. IMPACT

By the end of the project, we will have developed interventions to improve mAYP access to SRHR services; co-created systems to monitor health service responsiveness; supported identifiable youth-led approaches which enhance mAYP visibility; and, by year 4, established early/mid-career African researchers as research leaders.