Blog by Toyin Chukwudozie, Education as a Vaccine (Nigeria)

EVA’s team with Niger State Primary Healthcare Development Board Agency

As an advocacy fellow at EVA, I have been able to use the toolkit to push for the implementation of laws and policies that uphold the rights to health of adolescents and young people. For instance, in Niger State, Nigeria, I participated in an advocacy visit to the State Primary Healthcare Development Board to discuss the specific inclusion of adolescents and young people as beneficiaries of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund. My knowledge of the toolkit helped me to actively participate in the conversation and present our concrete asks. This advocacy visit gave us the platform to make recommendations on adolescents’ and young people’s SRHR as well as led to the incorporation of youth-targeted activities for unmarried adolescents and young people in the Niger State workplan for 2019.

EVA constantly works to ensure that young people gain the skills they need for advocacy and that policy-makers support policies and programmes that promote adolescents’ health and well-being. Our strategies are simple; to influence policies, we map out relevant stakeholders and engage them in face-to-face discussions and online campaigns on the need to support policy change that promotes adolescents’ health and well-being. We share evidence through our personal experiences and that of other young people we work with at community level.

We aim to change the perception and narrative of policy/lawmakers by convincing them of the vital importance of empowering adolescents and young people with good quality, youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health information and services. We also make recommendations for policy changes at state and national levels that would improve the quality of life of adolescents and young people in Nigeria.

A major challenge in our work is generally a closed-minded approach to addressing the lack of prioritization of the health rights of adolescents and young people. Also, very few young people in Nigeria are aware of their health rights and how they can use advocacy to strengthen government accountability for their health and well-being. That is why it is important to me that more young people become aware of their rights and have the tools to join in advocating for the changes we want.

Through the dissemination of the toolkit to young people, we see how it can help to bridge an important knowledge gap. The vibrancy of the adolescents and young people we have engaged and their willingness to participate in this intervention has been inspiring as they show great promise towards being advocates. Caroline Ndabula, a participant at one of our dissemination activities stated, “It is important that young people’s SRHR is given precedence at the national level. With this training, I have learnt what advocacy is and will use the opportunity to push for the rights of young people”.

Participants at a PMNCH advocacy training session

Young people are also realizing that they should be involved in the decision-making processes that affect their health and well-being. Edino Love said after one of toolkit dissemination sessions, “policies are often made without young people in mind. This training has exposed me to understand advocacy and be inclusive in advocating for my rights as a young person”.

I believe we are building a movement of young people who will advocate for the desired changes that will result in the government prioritizing the health rights of all adolescents and young people in the country. Influencing change in my community has inspired me and I desire that Nigeria becomes a country where every young person reaches their full potential without being denied access to comprehensive SRHR.