Sonke Gender Justice led a session on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights(SRHR) during the Choice for Youth and Sexuality’s Connector Week 2025. The Connector Week is a dynamic gathering of youth-led organisations under the Power to Youth and Right Here, Right Now 2 programmes. The session focused on diverse country realities and unpacked how SRHR is perceived in different communities. It also set the pace for conversations on how perceptions of SRHR have contributed to shaping policies and influencing behaviours and practices. Engagements also touched on youths’ contribution to meaningful change in their communities.
The SRHR session was an opportunity to identify the gaps in reproductive health issues like misconceptions on family planning, contraception use, and counselling services , and how young people can lead advocacy efforts to bridge the gaps and to determine if the policies promote Meaningful and Inclusive Youth Participation (MIYP). Sonke’s Power To Youth Partners from Malawi, Weston Mfunya and Godfrey Malongo from Youth Wave, were featured in the stories of change developed by Choice for Youth and Sexuality, giving a spotlight on the positive impact of MIYP.
The Connector Week 2025 which was held from the 6th to 10th April, in Grand Popo, Benin highlighted innovative strategies for sustaining youth-driven actions. The goal was to foster learning from different country context and best practices to create connections and strategies that will sustain the programs’ achievements.
Interactions highlighted innovative strategies for sustaining youth-driven actions. The learnings, engagements and reflections on the previous Connector Weeks led to the following outcomes being recorded:
- Increased mutual learning and capacity strengthening for youth advocates
- Strengthened sustainable movement building through strategic planning, community building and advocacy training.
- Enhanced connections between and with partners working on youth-led and youth-centred approaches.
The Connector Week provided a platform for cross-project learning between PtY and other programmes; the participants were able to learn about effective interventions and how they could apply that in their different contexts, for example, how the multistakeholder approach has created long-term partnerships with government departments and community structures. Furthermore, the agenda included a session on sustainability for youth-led organisations to discuss strategies and share tools to educate participants about sustainability beyond funding cycles.
