Project Information

Project Title:
An Initiative for Improving the Reproductive Health of Adolescent Girls in Bangladesh through Peer Education and Personal Social Education

Objective/s/Goal:
The Overall Goal of the project is to develop new initiatives aimed at meeting the unmet reproductive health needs of married adolescent girls in Bangladesh. UNICEF is addressing the needs of unmarried adolescent girls. The project aims to empower adolescents through the provision of quality adolescent-friendly reproductive health services, skills development and income generation activities, and community outreach and education on gender issues and reproductive health (including reducing the incidence of early marriage).

Implementing Agency/s: UNFPA and UNICEF

Status on Project Activities
Local communities in 30 upazillas (sub-districts), located in 10 of the country’s 64 districts, have been sensitized on the need to delay marriage, educate girls and provide them with life skills and access to appropriate reproductive health information and services. Some 240 young women have been trained as peer educators on Personal Social Education, which includes reproductive health, family planning, sexual health and life skills issues; most work in poor, remote communities. Life skills sessions for young women and men have been introduced in most National Youth Training Centers. At these Centers, youth acquire basic income generating skills and are encouraged to set up their own businesses with micro-credit schemes run by the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Traveling theatre groups have been sponsored in the poorest districts. These groups perform skits on the need to delay marriage, plan families, finish school, avoid HIV/AIDS and STIs and be more gender sensitive.