Adolescence is a period of transition. Young people are often anxious and confused about their changing bodies, their new feelings and increasing responsibilities. Adolescents struggle with anxiety and stress as they go through these changes. Adolescents need the support of their family, community and leaders during this time to maintain positive physical and mental health.

In order to support young men and women going through these changes, USAID formed The Adolescents Reproductive Health (ARH) Working Group, joining the forces of organizations working with adolescents. The ARH Working Group consists of male and female representatives from government, donors, implementing agencies and private sectors.

The ARH Working Group has continued to research the concerns of male and female adolescents; what information they lacked and what they themselves wanted to know about reproductive health and growing up. Using these questions, the ARH Working Group developed a toolkit that provides both male and female adolescents with the information they need to understand adolescence and life skills they require to develop positive reproductive health behaviors.

The ARH toolkit includes four booklets, videos, and life skills manuals. The contents cover the topics of: Puberty (physical and emotional changes); New Feelings, New Passions (physical attraction, expressing feelings, and delaying early marriage); Preventing Risks to our Future (HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Infections); Marriage and family health (conception, family planning, maternal health and child birth and care).

A logo with an ARH slogan “Nijeke Jano” (Know Yourself) identifies the toolkit and Behavior Change Communications materials as a unified program for promoting adolescent reproductive health. This program consists of interrelated strategies including:

• Community-level activities: Life Skills Training with the toolkit.
• Media-level activities: Development of a 26-episode TV program, 52-episode radio magazine program, and comic books to address reproductive health issues such as early marriage and unwanted pregnancy, Sexually Transmitted Infections & HIV/AIDS, sexual abuse and violence against the girl child, drug abuse, nutrition, etc. The story outlines and message contents were planned in participatory design workshops with male and female adolescents, programmers, trainers, researchers, writers, and broadcasters, including BTV and Bangladesh Radio.

The goal of the Adolescent Reproductive Health Working Group is to:

• Increase basic knowledge of adolescent reproductive health and knowledge of where to go for services.
• Increase adolescents’ life skills to be able to make good decisions and manage risky situations.
  

Bangladesh's Program Objectives

Selected Activities

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