Leaving no one behind: Meaningful engagement to ensure SRHR for all

Make Way is celebrating this year’s International Women’s Day – honouring the achievements of women globally, reflecting on the challenges facing gender equality and calling for further action to realise gender parity. This year’s theme is ‘For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment.’ It highlights the need for no one to be left behind and to enable youth, particularly young women, to create transformative change. In Make Way, we work with and for young people, especially marginalised youth including women, to understand their lived realities – applying these learnings to our intersectional sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) advocacy work.

To mark the moment, we interviewed Make Way youth representatives Bertha Chulu (Zambia) and Elizabeth Warindi (Kenya) to hear what International Women’s Day means to them. We dived into discussing the role of women and youth in realising SRHR, how to leave no one behind and their call-to-action for governments to realise gender parity. 

What does it mean to be a young woman and youth advocate in the Make Way programme?

Bertha

“What a time to be a young woman in the Make Way programme! It means being given the power and opportunity to bring my experiences and lived reality as a young woman and youth advocate into Make Way. It provides a platform to represent my fellow young women’s needs and their struggles, as well as belonging to joint advocacy efforts to change the narrative. It means an opportunity to be heard and to hold decision makers accountable on the inclusion of women and girls across the board.

Being a youth advocate and young woman in Make Way over the years has meant an evolution for me. I have evolved to better understand global SRHR landscapes and transfer this knowledge to my fellow young women. It has given me confidence to interrogate injustices on young women in my communities that have been normalised over the years. Belonging to this programme has meant that I step up and act, in situations where a fellow young woman is in need or disadvantaged. Being a young woman in Make Way means transformation to me!” 

Warindi

“Being a youth advocate and a young woman in the Make Way programme means being a continuous lifelong learner of SRHR advocacy. It means dismantling the barriers to accessing SRHR and being an advocate for young people across the five Make Way countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia). We aim to ensure that young people are aware of their SRHR so that they can demand access to quality and affordable services from their governments.” 

Why is it important for women and youth to be involved in realising SRHR? What are the particular issues facing young women in SRHR?

Bertha

“Historically, women have been left out. The world designed many interventions that did not consider the welfare of women. We see how this historical exclusion has reduced the seen value of young women, what happens to them and their bodies not fully belonging to them. This has been a big challenge for young women and youth in realising SRHR.  

We witnessed a shift through progressive global declarations like the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action to engage more women. Not just to design interventions to benefit them but to also get a glimpse of how these interventions align with them and what they would really want. Today, we collectively champion the meaningful inclusion of young women and youth in realising SRHR because only they understand the challenges they face. Through meaningful inclusion, women and youth are better equipped to develop solutions to their challenges. Including women in the realisation of SRHR means having an opportunity to develop policies that reflect their diverse and specific needs with solutions that are tailored to fill the gaps that exist.”

Warindi

“Women and youth face significant barriers in accessing SRHR. Firstly, barriers such as gender inequality, where women can be prevented from accessing information or even deciding on their own bodies. Secondly, young women can also be hindered from affording SRHR services. According to Forbes, people living with HIV in Kenya now must pay out of pocket to get antiretrovirals (ARVs) since the USAID budget cuts. Lastly, youth can be discouraged from seeking SRHR services because of the lack of youth-friendly centres that can accommodate them.” 

How can we ensure to leave no one behind in SRHR?

Bertha

“We need to build a bridge between policies, and those the policies are aimed to benefit. We need to move away from acting on behalf of those left behind and give them the platform, tools and resources to act. We need to move away from being the voice to the voiceless and give the voiceless a voice. That way, we will ensure that no one is left behind.” 

Warindi

“It starts with strong and consistent advocacy for breaking barriers to SRHR access and this is already being done by programmes like Make Way, amongst others here in Kenya. Such programmes are powerful because through advocacy, young people are informed about their right to quality, affordable and accessible SRHR services. This work must continue, even in the face of lack of funding and growing opposition to ensure that we safeguard our gains and that we reach more people. We, as young people, must lobby our governments to fill these gaps and ensure that SRHR is accessible to everyone.” 

What is your call to action for this International Women’s Day?

Bertha

“To world leaders, let us not take for granted investing in women’s health and rights. As global leaders, you lead citizens. WHO states that in 2020 about 800 women died every day to preventable causes in their reproductive health. Now if we lose women at this rate and in preventable situations, who then are we going to lead? Let us continue to invest in women’s SRHR and ensure their meaningful engagement.” 

Warindi

“The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is ‘For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment.’ This inspires my call to action to world leaders to work towards ensuring that women and girls all around the world, especially in underserved communities, have access to quality, affordable SRHR, that they are safe from violence and that they are treated equally and with respect.”