What Works For Us: New Youth-led Advocacy Chapter in DSD Toolkit

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New Chapter of the Activist Toolkit on Differentiated Service Delivery Launches at Launches at 2018 Youth Summit

ITPC and ARASA are proud to release a new chapter of the Activist Toolkit on Differentiated Service Delivery: What Works for Us – Youth-led Advocacy for DSD

Download the report What Works for Us – Youth-led Advocacy for DSD (PDF, 1.6MB) 

It is more critical than ever to reach adolescents and young people with better information, improved services and innovative approaches to address HIV and their specific health needs. Adolescents and young people are disproportionately affected by HIV, have poor knowledge of HIV prevention and testing services and have less access to care and treatment compared to adults. While AIDS-related mortality has been decreasing among adults and younger children, is has been on the rise among adolescents since 2000.  Compared to adults, adolescents have poorer access to antiretroviral therapy (18 percent compared to 46 percent for adults), higher rates of loss to follow-up and poorer adherence to treatment.
Today in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania at the PATA Summit, we launch a new chapter to a toolkit highlighting the critical needs and opportunities for reaching adolescents and young people living with HIV.  This chapter builds on a toolkit launched last year at the International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) in December 2017. The chapter emphasizes how differentiated service delivery (DSD), an approach that is client-centered, can address the needs of adolescents and young people. Successful advocacy strategies are described to empower adolescents and young people to ask for what works for them.

“DSD really works for young people. It makes it much easier for them to access services, much more quickly and from people who actually understand them and know what they are going through” (Youth advocate, South Africa)

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