Youth Participants Take the Lead at 3rd APCRSH

Out of the 1,200 delegates to the 3rd Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health (APCRSH), many were young people from the region who actively participated in the event. In plenary, parallel and satellite sessions, adolescents and youths took responsibility for making their voices heard and highlighting the issues and concerns of adolescent and young people’s SRH.

JOICFP conducted a skills building and empowerment workshop, organized by young people under Movah!, under the title of “Delivering Voices of Young People at the Grassroots to Policy and Decision Makers.” Around 100 people attended, both adults and youth.

JOICFP explained how youth voices for the Movah! project were collected and how the advocacy kit was put together to influence parliamentarians and decision makers.

The youth participants then acted out a drama explaining the process of collecting the voices in front of MPs from Bangladesh, Indonesia and Japan. This highlighted some of the difficulties in the region youth have in talking about sex and sexuality education.

Youth participants then conducted a practice advocacy session to the MPs using the newly developed Movah! advocacy kit.

The MPs gave feedback on the kit and methods used by young people advocating for ASRH.

Youth participants from four countries
perform an advocacy drama based on real life
in front of an audience that includes MPs