A project being implemented by a consortium of five organizations namely Family Planning Association of Malawi (FPAM), Plan International, Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR), Amref Health Africa and the Centre for Youth Empowerment and Civic Education (CYECE).
Background
The Yes I Do (YID) Alliance is a partnership between Plan, Amref, Choice for youth, Rutgers and KIT together with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The alliance in Malawi is a partnership comprised of Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR), Family Planning Association of Malawi (FPAM), Amref Health Africa, Centre for Youth Empowerment and Civic Education (CYECE), Centre for Social Research and Plan as a lead organization. There are five pathways for the project which alliance partners focus on. CHRR focuses on Social movement, Advocacy and Lobbying with their renowned expertise in legal issues; Amref concentrates its efforts on provision of Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health services while FPAM focuses on Adolescents Sexual Reproductive Health Rights; CYECE implements youth engagement activities while Plan International is the lead of the Alliance, and also implements youth economic empowerment activities coupled with community mobilization. The YID Alliance is a collaboration of five Dutch NGOs (Plan Nederland, Rutgers, Amref, KIT and CHOICE) to combat child marriage (CM) and teenage pregnancy (TP) focusing on young girls and their communities in order to make sure that adolescent girls can decide if, when and whom to marry and if, when and with whom to have children and to protect girls from FGM/C. The programme runs from 2016 – 2020 (5 Years).
The envisioned impact is that adolescent girls can decide if, when and whom to marry, and if when and with whom to have children, and are protected from Child marriage and Teenage pregnancy. Approximately 50% of girls in Malawi are married before the age of 18, the eighth highest child marriage rate in the world (End Child Marriage, 2012). This situation has been fuelled by prevailing socio-cultural factors, and a legal and policy environment that predisposes girls to child marriages. Although parliament adopted the Marriage, Divorce and Family Relations Bill in 2015, raising the minimum age of marriage from 16 to 18, and also adopting the constitutional amendment that has set the minimum age for marriage at 18, there still remain challenges of ensuring that the adopted legislations are enforced.
The project’s target areas include Lilongwe and Machinga-TA Liwonde, where all the pathways for the project are concentrated.
