Young people’s rights are violated if they are denied access to good sexual and reproductive health services, which affects their lives and health. ASK begins with involving young people (10 – 24 years old) and establishing what they want and need, putting them at the centre of the programme and building their individual strengths. Together we create a more enabling environment, challenging stigma and taboos. We develop and adapt services that answer the needs that young people defined. And we make practical links between communication and education to the real services available.

IPPF took the initiative to launch ‘Keep Me Safe’, a European project designed to empower young Europeans with a learning disability to protect themselves against sexual abuse. Moreover, they have both the right – as does everyone else – to engage in intimate relationships without placing themselves at risk, and the right to education and care.

Girls and women all over the world menstruate every month. That is quite normal. It is surely part of being a woman. In the Netherlands women can just live their lives when having their period. For women in India this is often a different story. In the project ‘Making periods normal’ we will inform and educate women and girls in India about menstruating, improving their hygiene, and we create job opportunities by supporting production plants for sanitary pads in Bihar.

In the programme MenCare+ husbands are encouraged to attend the births of their children. Young men are educated on sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender equality and care giving. MenCare+ is a Rutgers programme in partnership with Promundo, working in Brazil, Indonesia, Rwanda and South Africa. It builds on the global MenCare campaign for more responsible fathers.

Rutgers and the members of the Sexual Health and Reproductive Health and Rights Alliance – Amref Flying Doctors, Choice for Youth and Sexuality, dance4life, and Simavi – have established this four year programme to deliver education on sexual and reproductive health and rights, sexual and reproductive health services, and help the community to make them work

The female condom can give women greater power over contraception and HIV prevention. Women are more affected by HIV than men in developing countries and too often the female condom just isn’t available to them. Rutgers and its partners in the Universal Access to Female Condoms Joint Programme (UAFC) are working to change that.