PAI Announces Inaugural YOUAccess Fund Awardees

PAI has selected the six grant recipients under its new YOUAccess Fund, which provides capital and seed funding to youth-led organizations in the Global South to advance access to and use of contraception. The YOUAccess grants provide flexible funding that allows for risk-taking and provides a platform for youth ownership of projects. The awardees will contribute to building family planning champions among policymakers, leaders, and organizations at national, district and community levels. The grants offer the opportunity for innovative project development, knowledge sharing, and evidence-building for the best course for future initiatives to meet youth contraceptive needs.

Grant recipients are as follows:

• My Age Zimbabwe Trust will advocate for the provision of two mobile family planning clinics in three IDP camps in the Marondera Rural district.
• Personal Initiative for Positive Empowerment Kenya (PIPE Kenya) aims to engage service providers and policymakers to ensure that family planning programs enable young women living with HIV access to contraception.
• Rayons des Initiatives Culturelles, Musicales et des Arts Oraux (RICMAO ASSO) seeks to advocate with national, municipal, and private-sector decision-makers to secure free contraceptives and access to contraceptive information for 2,000 youth in the city of Porto-Novo.
• ZOE-MED Organization will train staff in three clinics in the Northwest region of Cameroon on how to counsel young people with disabilities on family planning.
• Association Lead Santé plans to increase family planning and reproductive health resources, information, and services for students in three schools in rural Madagascar.
• Women Promotion Centre will pursue abolishing forceful pregnancy tests for girls in 15 schools in the Kibera slum of Nairobi.

With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, PAI awarded the six grants ranging from $5,000 to $15,000 based on strength of application, feasibility of advocacy opportunities, innovative programmatic design, and demonstrated leadership.

Youth access to contraceptives is critical because more than one in four girls in the developing world gives birth by the age of 19, and maternal mortality is the second-leading cause of death among girls between the ages of 15-19.

“PAI has long recognized the significant potential of young leaders in advocating for their right to lead healthy lives and determine their own futures,” said Katelyn Bryant-Comstock, PAI Research Associate and project manager of the YOUAccess fund.

“We are proud to support these promising programs at youth-led organizations committed to advancing contraceptive access and use among young people who need it—we believe our investment will go far.”

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PAI champions policies that put women in charge of their reproductive health. We work with policymakers in Washington and our network of partners in developing countries to remove roadblocks between women and the services and supplies they need. For over 50 years, we’ve helped women succeed by upholding their basic rights. To learn more, visit pai2020s.wpengine.com.