The first year and a half of the project, from July 1999 to December 2000, involved community mobilisation, which involved mobilising communities from 20 villages to identify priority YSRH concerns and helping them identify strategies to address these concerns. The Burkinabé NGO, Mwangaza Action, was the in-country partner who implemented project activities. Mwangaza worked with 3 youth associations, who led the community mobilisation activities. To prepare these groups for their role, Advocates and Mwangaza trained them in adolescent sexual and reproductive health issues (ASRH), strategies, programming, and community participation.

The community participation methodology is characterised by a series of participatory workshops carried out with village committees. Each youth association worked with one village committee. As a result of the participatory process, communities at the project sites identified the following priority areas in adolescent sexual and reproductive health: HIV/AIDS and STIs; contraception; female genital cutting (FGC); parent-child communication; and youth-friendly services. Village committees subsequently identified strategies to address these priorities. Strategies chosen included: peer education, information, education and communication (IEC) through the use of folk and modern media and interpersonal communication, and training health centre personnel in youth-friendly reproductive health services.

The second phase of the project, which began in July 2000 and ended in March 2002, consisted of preparing for and launching the community-based interventions. First, the Pacific Institute carried out baseline research, the results of which informed the interventions. To respond to the gaps presented in the research, the youth associations trained a total of 47 peer educators ages 15-25 in YSRH. At each site, the peer educators conducted approximately 30 group talks and 60 home visits per month around the priority topics. The peer educators sold about 600 condom packets per month and reached about 1,024 youth per month.

IEC activities were central to the success of the project. All 3 sites conducted topic-specific discussions open to all (séances grand publique), either around a video showing, a music performance, theatre, or a cultural fair. The youth association at each site conducted approximately seven music and video activities per month, reaching up to 900 community members per month. Topics addressed included family planning, contraceptive methods, HIV/AIDS, STIs, FGC, and parent child communication. Finally, like peer educators, adult association members also conducted home visits, involving adults for discussions about parent-child communication around sexuality issues. They reached about 60 adults per site per month.

Youth, Reproductive Health.

Evaluation results indicate high levels of participation by community members, improvements in local capacity around YSRH programming and community mobilisation, and improvements in areas of YSRH.