Adolescent Health and Well-being 

In a country with the largest adolescent population in the world, it becomes imperative to prioritise and invest in the needs of youth and adolescents, especially if we are to reap the benefits of our demographic dividend. Population Foundation of India endeavours to achieve this by pivoting its focus on the sexual and reproductive health, wellness, and online safety needs of adolescents and youth. The motive is to support adolescents and youth and imbue them with the agency to take informed decisions about their sexuality, health and well-being.  

• SnehAI selected for the WhatsApp Incubator Program: Population Foundation of India’s SnehAI was among the first 10 incubatees selected for Meta’s WhatsApp Incubator Program. The program was designed to help prominent organisations working on critical health issues leverage the WhatsApp platform to improve the quality and reach of their services.
• Launch of Adolescent Problem-Solving Counselling Training (APT) on Educately: Hosted on our ed-tech platform Educately, APT is a training programme on counselling for common adolescent concerns. It teaches an evidence-based, brief problem-solving counselling intervention that will equip adolescents with coping skills for their mental health concerns.
• Population Foundation of India assisted the Uttar Pradesh government in prioritising adolescent health and well-being in the new UP Population Policy (2021-2030) by giving primacy to issues surrounding nutrition and SRH of adolescents.
• We commissioned a study titled ‘Investing in Adolescents-A Case for India’ to generate evidence on the pressing need to invest in adolescent health, nutrition, and education, among others.
• Provided technical support to the State Health Society Bihar (SHSB) and Bihar State AIDS Control Society (BSACS) in conceptualisation of SEHAT Kendra, a youth-friendly space, which provides accurate information on sexual and reproductive health, mental health, gender, and nutrition to students across 30 colleges in Bihar.
• Mobilised over 500 adolescents to sign and send a letter to the Prime Minister, urging him to acknowledge the aspirations of young people and the need to provide them with opportunities to make them self-reliant.
• Under the Feminist and Adolescent Youth-led Action (FAYA) program, we have completed Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) curriculum with more than 10,000 out-of-school adolescents across 200 villages in 4 districts.