Adolescents: An Assessment of Youth Centres in South Africa

Excerpts from the document

This is a study that looks at the increased interest and efforts in expanding youth centre programmes as a result of HIV/AIDS affecting young South Africans. The study was designed to give implementing agencies and donors a broad view of how the youth centres function, whom they target, whom they actually reach, and the quality of information and services provided. In total, twelve youth centres from three agencies, loveLife, UNFPA-DFID Youth and Adolescent Reproductive Health Programme (YARHP), and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Provincial Department of Health, were selected for the study.

A situational analysis of the youth centres was used to assess functioning, quality, and utilisation of facilities. Seven demarcated area surveys were conducted among 1399 young people aged 12 to 24 years and their parents. Overall, 61% of youth in the demarcated areas were aware of the existence of the youth centre and 29% had ever visited the centres.

This assessment underscored the importance of monitoring the performance of programmes and exploring the profile of those being reached by various interventions. Centres should not lose sight of their health objectives and should recognise that many young people need quality reproductive health information and services. Therefore ongoing monitoring of the numbers and profiles of young men and women reached with health inputs needs to be integral to effective programming

The review indicated that boys and girls use programmes for different reasons. Youth programmes should resist the temptation to homogenise boys and girls into a broad, genderless category “youth.” Attention should be paid to the specific needs and circumstances of boys and girls in designing programmes that satisfy their distinct reproductive health needs.