Standing Strong for a Woman's Right to a Just and Healthy Life

In the world today, young people make up over 50% of the 5 million people infected with HIV each year. According to the new statistics, Kenya’s HIV prevalence was 6.7% in the year 2009. Young women between 15 and 19 years are three times more likely to be infected than their male counterparts, while 20–24 year-old women are 5.5 times more likely to be living with HIV than men in their age cohort (National AIDS/STI Control Programme, 2009).

Because of the number of young women infected with HIV/AIDS increasing every day, with the Young Visionaries contest grant I will implement a project known as I WEAVING MY LIFE targeting 10 young women ages 15-24 years living with HIV/AIDS and affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The aim will be to reduce stigma and discrimination and increase accessibility of HIV/AIDS Care and treatment among young girls/women living with and affected by HIV/AIDS.

The project location will be 2 slum areas of Dandora and Mukura in Nairobi, Kenya, where the rate of infection among girls and young women is very high due to poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, gender based violence, drug abuse, and increased involvement in risky sexual behaviors. The project will empower the young girls/women by training them on sexuality rights and reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, and home-based care.

In collaboration with other community youth and women with HIV-led organizations, the project will also create awareness on HIV/AIDS in the community through organizing community and school based outreach activities hence reducing infections rate among young girls/women and also reducing stigma and discrimination of people living with HIV/AIDS.

The project will also create a safe space for group support network and increase accessibility to HIV/AIDS care and treatment. Through referral to other organizations that offer HIV/AIDS services, the young women will be encouraged and supported to regularly seek HIV/AIDS care and treatment.

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The beginning of the long budgetary process began with the release of the President’s budget request to Congress on February 1. The total Fiscal Year 2011 (FY11) budget request – $3.8 trillion – is the largest-ever requested by a President. Of that total, $8.5 billion – which represents about 0.2 percent (yes, that’s “point” 2 percent) – of the budget request, is in support of the Obama’s Global Health Initiative (GHI). The global health request is a 9 percent increase overall from last year, with some program areas remaining fairly flat funded (like HIV/AIDS (click to download PDF) and tuberculosis) while others grew, including maternal and child health (by $150 million) and family planning (though the increase is not yet clearly known) in an effort to make up for some of the past years of severe shortages.

These are laudable steps forward to be sure – a 9 percent increase in this budget climate is nothing to shake a stick at. However, and this is an important however, if the United States is going to meet its fair share of global health programs, more needs to be done… and it certainly won’t get less expensive by waiting.

At the same time as the budget came out, the Administration released its expanded framework for implementing the Global Health Initiative (link leads to a PDF) as part of the consultative process to develop a new model to achieve health improvements and create effective and efficient country-led programs.

Another announcement in the budget that links to the GHI is a new $100 million strategic fund to better integrate various health programs in key countries so individuals can more easily access the various health services they need. Central to that will be holistically and comprehensively meeting the needs of women and girls through addressing the unmet need for family planning, maternal mortality and disability, child health, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB, and neglected tropical diseases.

Death is death – whether it is caused by malnutrition, or pregnancy or AIDS – and the same is true of illness which is why health needs to be addressed more comprehensively rather than pitting specific diseases and situations against one another. Garnering the benefits from integrated services requires “all boats to rise” when it comes to funding – imbalanced programs do not make for effective ones.

Much work lies ahead – through the rest of the funding process with Congress – to enable all people to have access to the information and services they need to exercise their right to make healthy decisions about their lives.

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If I win the Young Visionaries grant, I will collaborate with the state of Kano (in Nigeria) ministries of health, youth and other development partners to create three Leadership 4 Health clubs (L4H Club) for young adolescent girls in three girls’ senior secondary schools across the three senatorial districts of the state (one club per each senatorial district). This will have the aim of equipping and providing them with the necessary leadership and communication skills, and also factual information regarding their sexuality, so as for them to be able to make informed and reliable decisions. The rationale behind this initiative (L4H Club), is to save young adolescent girls in the state from the dangers of early and forced marriages that have engulfed the majority of them in the state. Members of the club are expected to enlighten other students in their various schools so as the messaging will have a multiplier effect.

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If I win the Young Visionaries contest, I will conduct a life skills training and motivational talks with young people transitioning from their high school to university in a bid to educate young people on how to manage time after school, and reduce unemployment by exposing them to new skills and opportunities that will be fundamental to their livelihood.

My vision is to see many young girls and boys discover their potential, make use of their talents and advance the society where they live by keeping them from high risky behaviours that would be detrimental to their health and growth.

I also want the young people to take responsibility for their lives and be self aware of their leadership skills. Despite any challenges of unemployment, I would help them find alternative ways of creating jobs for themselves through discovery of the opportunities in the society.

All this will only be possible with this grant which will make this idea into a reality.

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I would organize a seminar in partnership with other non-governmental organizations on “The Youthful Age and Its Peculiarities” if I win the Young Visionaries contest.

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This past December, the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) of the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK convened a meeting of leading erotic justice activists and service providers for a deliberation on “Sexual Pleasure and Women’s Empowerment.”

Presenters at the event advocated for understanding the female sexual universe as having to do with more than just disease, violence, exploitation, and procreation. The forum was also critical of the medicalisation of women’s bodies, desires, and pleasure.

All presentations were clear in their assessment of sexual pleasure as a strategy for empowering women. One presenter, Bibi Bakare, for example, presented theories that were inspired by the work of Carole Vance, editor of the ground-breaking early 1990s anthology Pleasure and Danger. Another presenter, Lorna Couldrick, presented her work to empower people with disabilities to have and enjoy the kind pleasure they want. Jo Doezema’s “Pleasure and Performance in Sex Work” and Agata Zumaeta’s theatrical approaches also reinforced this notion. All presenters pointed to the fact that focusing on female sexual pleasure —and the embodied agency that it gives to women— has a greater potential of deconstructing the hetero-patriarcal logic and scripts that women are passive objects of hetero-masculine activities.

Presentations also emphasized the idea that the sexual pleasure approach to women’s empowerment, as tested by various projects around the world, was undeniably the right response to resolving female subjectivity and subjugation. Examples of such intervention strategies were drawn from projects on gender-based violence in Africa, projects for people living with HIV, the transgender/transsexual projects, and sexuality education strategies such as the ones designed by Gill Gordon.

I was proud to be able to discuss the International Center for Reproductive Health and Sexual Rights (INCRESE) pleasure project as a part of this new and exciting development in women’s health and empowerment. INCRESE began intervention on erotic justice with a simple research on attitudes and perception towards sexual pleasure in women. It sought to check out how these traditional perceptions were influencing programming on sexual reproductive health and rights. In disseminating our findings, we are recognizing a great need to challenge the position of hetero-patriarchal notions of female sexuality.

Amazingly, the audiences at the various dissemination fora sought for more information and asked for solutions to the negative attitude that was reported in the research findings. These quests resulted in regular education fora that soon became couple support meetings as partners brought their spouses to the meetings.

After working with over 125 couples, INCRESE conducted an evaluation and discovered that domestic violence among couples that were attending the meetings had decreased; that there was better communication among partners; that women felt they hadmore room to address issues pertaining to the sexual conduct of their husbands; that men felt they had more room to discuss the challenges of polygamy; and that issues concerning use of contraceptives, STIs, HIV/AIDS, sexual pleasure and orgasms could be discussed by the couples much more freely. Women became empowered to discuss their desires, their pleasures and beyond that began to have a say on how the family resources were managed. It was a rewarding experience.

Because of the excellent results I experienced working with INCRESE on sexual pleasure and women’s empowerment, I am particularly thrilled to see organizations, universities, and movements looking for cutting edge women’s empowerment approaches for this decade and beyond! My experience at the University of Sussex conference indicates that the feminist think tank is working on the offensive, and not on the defensive, as it continues to work on sexual pleasure with couples and individuals across the country.

Dorothy Aken’Ova works with the International Centre for Reproductive Health and Sexual Rights, the leading Nigerian NGO working for a favorable environment and expanding access to sexual health and rights information and services. (INCRESE) in Nigeria.

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If I win the Young Visionaries contest and am given $1000, I will organize a Youth Summit with the Theme “Improving Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health for Young People.” This I believe will bridge the disconnect between rights and reality.

The summit will bear in mind and consider the fact that there’s significant un-met need for information, education, and services for sexual and reproductive health for married and unmarried people and thus essential to create an environment conducive in keeping girls in school through secondary level and to address gender inequalities for successful development of the nation.

I believe and understand that the sexual and reproductive health of young people is the fundamental key to the development of nations – demographically, economically, socially, culturally and politically and as such meeting our needs (i.e. the needs of young people, is patently critical to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

The summit, which will bring together youth and youth leaders, parliament members, professionals in the field of sexual and reproductive health, and other stakeholders will address issues on

- Information and services for contraception as well as post abortion – care for young people
- Sexuality Education
- Girl Child Education
- Gender Based violence
- HIV/AIDS and STI’s including cervical cancer

Recognizing that investing & empowering girls and women is one of the most cost-effective and efficient ways to advance the development agenda, the summit will enable young people express their views and opinions on the need to develop an approach that allows meaningful participation, opportunities at the policy level that respects young people’s interest and needs in programming for HIV and reproductive health services.

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If I win the Young Visionaries contest, I will use the money for a road tour around my country of Malaysia to get as many as I can of the poor and lack of education people to be well-documented, for example, to get their Identity card.

The documents are the most important thing for anyone to get access to the health and education and other utilities in this country.

Many are not willing to get themselves well-documented either because they don’t have enough money to travel out to the city to do it, or they can’t read and write and are afraid of the un-friendly officers.

I hope I can change this situation and make things better.

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A year ago, I studied abroad in South Africa; my experience there changed my life in ways I could have never imagined. During the semester, I volunteered weekly with an orphange called The Ubuntu Crisis Center. These children, mostly female, had been removed from their homes due to sexual abuse or unsafe environments; many of them were also HIV positive. The word “ubuntu” literally means “I am a person because you are a person”; in other words, it is the South African belief in a common humanity. It is with this belief in mind and heart that I would use the Young Visionaries contest grant to help the girls of the Crisis Center develop healthily and provide the HIV positive children with the necessary medication.

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