Maherunesa's Blog

Final Project

2010-08-21T11:25:00.000-07:00

Name of Project Manager:
Maherunesa Khandaker
Project Title:
Youth Sexual Health Advocacy and Guidance: Portsmouth
Project Location: Project implementation location (Country & City)
Portsmouth, UK
Project duration: both starting and ending month and year (MM/YYYY) respectively
08/2011 to 08/2012
Total Project Cost in GBP£: 6829

Project Background/Need statement/Problem Analysis:
Describe the community or communities in which your project will be implemented.
The project will be implemented at 3 schools in the town of Portsmouth.

Describe the specific need or problem that your project attempts to address.
The project attempts to address teenage pregnancies (and the general improvement of sexual health); this project will be addressing on shifting attitudes towards safe sex, teenage pregnancies as well as aiming to lower the incidence of pregnancies themselves.

Please include what other organizations are doing to address this problem, and what gaps remain.
From surveys completed by young people it has been found that all too often, sexual health services in the UK involve too much biology and that it isn’t necessarily relatable to their relationships. Much of the time young people feel like those that teach them about sexual health are too embarrassed, they aren’t frank enough – so more confident people are required to teach about the subject. Often sexual health advice centres etc are hard to reach or not known about by young people.

Describe the community, the economic opportunities, the basic social amenities available, try to link it up with the issue.

England has the highest under 18 conception rate in Western Europe with an average of 41.7 per 1000, whilst Portsmouth’s teenage pregnancy rate is above this as it is at 57.7 per 1000 teens. However it has been found that 47% of these conceptions result in abortion, suggesting that young people are not accessing effective contraception and may be engaging in more risky behavior, pointing to the need for better advice and information about sex and relationships. Reducing teenage pregnancy requires strong partnership working, though it requires a spread of different tactics. There are many sexual health services in Portsmouth, offering free condoms and biological advice; if these worked with the unique emotional and relatable advice offered by my initiative, then this will make for a truly effective strategy in combating teenage pregnancy.

Why are you working on this specific project instead of others?

I am working on this initiative as it is led by young people for young people, creating a self sustaining model of peer facilitated learning about issues of health. Where young people have complained that sexual health services are too impersonal and biological, this specific project will deal with the emotions involved in sexual relationships (which is vital in getting young people to value sex more and realizing the realities of having a baby so young) as well as making young people understand the realities of having children during their teenage years so that young people can relate more to the sexual health advice given and heed it.

Baseline Project Information:

Before starting the project next year we are conducting a survey to assess what aspects of sexual health education need further addressing, we are using the website “Survey Monkey” and distributing survey using our networks, primarily youth networks such as members of The British Youth Council and through social media including Facebook and Twitter. The survey has already been created 10 months in advance of the project allowing us plenty of time to review what needs to be implemented in the project. The survey is currently being distributed, from this we shall create a report and form the baseline information for the project.

Project Summary/Description:
Provide a summary of the project for which you are requesting funds that includes the mission and activities of the project

We will train a group of 25 young people aged 15-20 years from 3 different schools in the city of Portsmouth in the UK to become peer to peer sexual health advisors at their schools in order to provide basic education on sex and relationships to lower the number of unplanned, teenage pregnancies in my community and consequently stop young girls from dropping out of their education.

The 25 young people will be trained by us over 4 weeks in the summer of 2011 so that they are confident to use their new skills at the start of the new academic year in September 2011. They will be trained in public speaking, basic sexual health, in confidentiality and how to deliver creative methods of sexual health education, such as games. They will be supported in securing a whole school presentation at the start of term to deliver in each of the schools they are a part of, then in collaboration with the Headmaster we will ensure that the students can secure a lunchtime sexual health advice session every Friday to make advice accessible to their peers. The advice will consist of much personal advice, offering help on relationships and dealing with emotions as young people have said most other sexual health organisations offer too much impersonal and scientific advice. On occasions a health professional from a local partner sexual health organisation will be invited to these sessions to offer medical advice.
Project Goal/Aim: Please give a short description of the overall, long-term, development goal towards which the project is expected to contribute.

This project is a part of Youth Sexual Health Advocacy and Guidance (currently known as Global Forum 40) which will train young people (under 25 years of age) from 40 different countries to become sexual health ambassadors in their local communities. Our overall long term aim is to make health information and care equal and universal for young people all over the world.

By 2012 we would like to be a leading authority on young people’s health, acting as a bridge between young people and governments and organisations around the world to help shape policies and lead the youth fight to eradicate the stigma attached to health issues including HIV/AIDS and mental illness and resolve lacking healthcare around the world.
Project Objectives:
In May 2011 put out a call for applications to become a “Community Sexual Health Ambassador”, this role will be advertised by contacting the 3 target secondary schools in the area. The application will ask for the applicant to be aged 15-20. Interviews will be held in July, and training will commence in August over 4 Saturdays. The training materials which will include posters will be produced and provided by the Global Forum 40 team. We will look for 7-9 people to hire from each of the 3 schools.

In addition to basic sexual health knowledge, information that the ambassadors will be taught to give out will include the addresses of local NHS sexual health clinics, we will supply them with leaflets and emails to refer to these addresses at the end of the training in August 2011.

In September 2011, the ambassadors will be encouraged to give a presentation in front of their school to talk about and introduce the issue of teenage pregnancy, followed by classroom presentations to promote their new advice sessions and basic sexual health. We will push for schools to implement the Friday lunchtime sexual health advice sessions where the ambassadors will offer one on one advice from the beginning of October. We also aim to collaborate with other local sexual health services with health professionals to drop in and offer medical advice in the lunchtime sessions. Our target is to have around 20 young people attend each of the lunchtime advice sessions.

The target is that by September 2012, per school that has taken part in the programme, the number of teenage pregnancies will be reduced by 80%, which will consequently lower the drop out rate (for this reason)

Project Activities:

This project requires 25 young people from Portsmouth to act as sexual health ambassadors in their schools. To find these 25 young people, by 15th May 2011 the Outreach Coordinator will put out a call for applications to become a “Community Sexual Health Ambassador”. This role will be advertised by contacting the 3 target secondary schools in the area by email and phone, we will ask the schools to send us a copy of their newsletters to ensure our advert is well publicised. The application will ask for the applicant to be aged 15-20.

Interviews will be held in July at the Community Centre in Portsmouth which will cost £35 to hire out over the day, and training delivered by the directors, outreach coordinator and events officer will commence in August over 4 Saturdays, the training will take place at the Community Centre. The training materials will be produced and provided by the Global Forum 40 team. We will look for 7-9 people to hire from each of the three schools.

By 20th September 2011 the ambassadors will have delivered a presentation to their schools and we will help them to secure Friday lunchtime sexual health advice sessions from the beginning of October. We will support them in this as the Outreach Coordinator will be explaining to their Headmasters the effectiveness of peer to peer advice and will present the head teacher our Youth S.H.A.G. report on the sexual health habits of young people (made using the results of our survey we are currently carrying out) to show them the statistics.

The lunchtime sessions will continue throughout the academic year. By the end of the year we will have evaluated the effectiveness of the project, then if the first project has been successful we will hold another 4 week training event over August hiring 3 more ambassadors from each school but taking into account what alterations are required and also with the help of the previous ambassadors to give them advice on what to expect of the role. The project will continue similarly the next September and onwards.

Description of Project Beneficiaries:
This project will benefit 15-20 year old boys and girls in secondary school/college in the town of Portsmouth in the UK girls. The project will be implemented at state schools.

Target Community input:
The project will take place in schools, for example all presentations and advice sessions will take place in spare rooms in the schools which can be used by their student ambassadors for free.
Additionally some lead up events such as the main launch event for the entire organization have accepted free accommodation and food donated by partner organizations to help with costs.

Community participation and collaboration:
Explain if and how your target community has been involved in shaping this project as well as the general work of your organization. What is the community’s role in this project? How do you plan to collaborate with organizations?
The target community has been involved in shaping this project firstly in terms of analyzing the situation, as our survey on youth sexual health has been distributed amongst the people we hope to benefit – the results of our survey will help to shape the project as it will help us to identify what we need to work on in particular.

The community has a pivotal role in the project as this project runs on the ethos of recruiting and training young people from the community we hope to benefit to act as sexual health educators and advisors amongst their peers.

We plan to collaborate with other local sexual health organizations for medical help; as where we provide a personal service to the young people we help, there may be medical help that will be best delivered by the health professionals, who we will occasionally ask to feature in drop in sessions in addition to the usual Friday lunchtime advice sessions. We are also collaborating with organizations such as Taking It Global for advice and technical support in running the project.

Innovation: Please give a description of why your project is different from other projects. Please indicate how the new ideas, methods or technologies you are using will add value to the project.

Youth S.H.A.G/GF40 tackles sexual health related problems through consulting with young people across the globe on related issues, getting to the roots of the issues and then providing solutions and answers to combat these problems, mainly through creating and developing peer led educative programmes, campaigns and interactive tools.

Our programmes are designed to fit the needs and requirements of the specific topic at hand, we take advice from outside organisations and consult with leading global facilitators to ensure the young people were working with, are given the best possible learning experience - most of all they're designed to be fun, creative and energetic. We are also making effective use of social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Youtube and creating an I-phone application in addition to traditional methods of sexual health advice to make the issues even more relevant and accessible to this generation of young people.

The Youth S.H.A.G./GF40 project I am working on in Portsmouth is different as it deals with the emotions involved in sex and relationships, making it more relatable to young people who have expressed their views that all sexual health advice they receive is too scientific and impersonal.
Project Outcome: Please give a short description of the immediate outcomes of your project. The outcomes are the effects or changes that your project intends to bring about among the target group or in the community.
The immediate outcome is that it will empower young people to become leading authorities on sexual health in their own communities. They in turn will provide immediate access to their peers on issues of sexual health.

Project Sustainability: Please give a description of how the project will continue to operate and maintain the project gains.
The project will continue to operate as it runs on a self sustaining model, whereby once we have trained our first 25 ambassadors, they will essentially be taking the lead role in carrying out main activity of the project (acting as peer to peer sexual health advisors). Once the first year of the project is done, we will teach these ambassadors how to then train new ambassadors at their schools in the same vein. This core action of this scheme can continue for years with few costs involved as it merely requires young people educating each other in presenting and basic sexual health advice, and using their facilities at their schools to run advisory sessions.
Partnership/Stakeholders: Please give a description of how you plan to involve the local government, private enterprises, youth groups, faith based organizations or other non-governmental organizations in the project and how their participation will add value to the project.
Local government-Should the project be successful we can lobby the local government to shape policy on sexual health education so that it is delivered differently throughout the country. Also the support of the local government will allow us to then spread our project to more than just the 3 schools in the area.

Youth Groups – Will be helpful in thinking of creative ways we can deliver our training so that it is motivating for the young ambassadors.

Local sexual health organizations – vital for offering us statistics about teenage pregnancy rates in the area, and will be an important partner in terms of allowing us to work with volunteer health professionals who can drop into schools to offer health related advice at the Friday lunch sessions. We will also need their addresses at hand should any young person need medical advice.

Local businesses – essential for funding the project, such as supplying us with goods that we can auction to raise money.

Funders – will be vital for offering technical support in terms of implementing the project, how to train the ambassadors as well as opening us up to more networks.

Communication and Sharing: How will you share the project outcome and prevent duplication of efforts by others?
I will document every step involved in the project implementing and running purpose on a blog on the GF40 website will be publicized through our extensive networks including Global Changemakers and The British Youth Council as well as various sexual health organization networks such as the Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS. We will be working with a large number of partners who will be fully aware of our work on both a global scale (such as TIG) and on a local scale such as Portsmouth Primary Care Trust.

Project management Structure: What is your project management structure? Who will do what? Clearly outline the project team structure and how you will ensure transparency and accountability during the project implementation phase?
Executive Directors: They are responsible for approving and overseeing all programmes of GF40 and steering the direction of the organization.

Outreach Coordinator: Is responsible for galvanizing action from the sexual health ambassadors, involved in ambassador training, overseeing how they are working and keeping the community interested in the project by remaining in close contact with them.

Events and Fundraising Coordinator: responsible for coming up with fundraising ideas and organizing events to raise more money for the projects. They are also responsible for applying for writing and submitting funding forms.

Media and Communications Officer: Responsible for writing press releases and forming and building links with media partners to explore the potential for sponsorship, funding and long term projects.

Finance Officer: Responsible for ensuring the financial sustainability of GF40, creation of financial procedures, creation of budgets and oversight of spending by both team members and the organisation as a whole (e.g. expenses, petty cash).

Transparency and accountability will be ensured by weekly team meetings where the assistant to the Executive Directors will write the minutes. Each member of the team will have weekly evaluation forms to fill out throughout the week, detailing their actions and what they have achieved within the week. The completed evaluation forms will then be shared amongst the team at the weekly meetings.

Mobilizing Support: How will you mobilize local support for your project? How will you convince others to work with you on this project? How will you include others in making a change?
Support of Schools – The support of schools is the most important thing in implementing this project as we hope to recruit young people to act as sexual health ambassadors for their own schools where they will run advice sessions for their peers at their schools. So support will be needed from Headmasters and school staff to get the go ahead. This will be done by the Communications officer from February – April 2011, contacting the Headmasters firstly by phone and email, then arranging an appointment with the Headmasters in April where the Outreach Coordinator will argue for the importance of a personalized peer to peer sexual health advice service that is immediately accessible by other young people, the argument will be backed up by a report which I will present showing the views of young people in the community on what is needed in terms of sexual health advice.

Enthusiasm of Young Ambassadors – As we are all young people managing this project, we will be able to relate to other young people also wanting to affect change. We will enthuse the young ambassadors by firstly promising them a certificate and fantastic CV opportunity when we are advertising for the role. Once recruited we will train them in a fun manner so that they truly enjoy their role and are fully confident in it.

Local Government – I will organize a meeting with my MP in August 2011 who I am sure will see the potential of this project, especially as it is run by young people and I will ask him to endorse it fully, perhaps by releasing a statement about it on his website.

Media – The Media and Communications officer will get in touch with the local media to publish a positive report on the project, to get more people interested in it and to support it as the project launches in schools in September 2011.

Monitoring and Evaluation:
Objective1:
To have a training event in August 2011 which will gather 25 student ambassadors from different schools in Portsmouth district who will be trained to act as a sexual health advisors in their schools.

Indicators of achievement:
•The number of students who complete the training session.
•The number of students who continue to act as sexual health ambassadors in their schools throughout academic year 2010-2011

Means of verification:

Throughout the training event, a register will be taken to mark the students attendance; additionally statements will be taken from participants about what they gained from attending training at the end of training.

To monitor the number of students who continue to use their skills in their schools throughout the year, statements will be taken from the students about the project and its impact every 3 months after training until the end of the year. Additionally statements will be taken from the Headmasters of the schools to monitor progress of the ambassadors every 3 months until the end of the year.

Objective2:
Receive offers of interest from other schools after publishing an article/report about the project in the local newspaper/TV news station.

Indicators of achievement:
• A published story in the newspaper/a TV news report about the Youth Sexual Health Advocacy and Guidance project in Portsmouth
• The number of head teachers/teachers/students of other schools that read about this and contact us to implement the project in their schools
Means of verification:
A copy of the published newspaper/recording of TV news report will be kept by our Media Officer. The Outreach Coordinator will be corresponding with the interested parties, monitoring the letters, emails and calls from those who have read the article.

Challenges:

As this project relies on young people (aged 15-20) to act as mentors in their own communities, they face the challenge of juggling this role with their school or college timetables, so it will be challenging to find individuals who are committed and organised enough to take on the role and achieve the project aims within a given timescale.
Cultural attitudes among young people in the UK are hard to shift, not necessarily attitudes towards sex, but young people here lack willingness to take those who are trying to teach them seriously. So the young people who we aim to educate may not cooperate with or listen to us. We may try and teach the young people using fun fresh approaches such as group games but even so we must be careful not to patronize them. Some young people may not want to give up their time for this project.
Additionally parents have an overriding influence on their children, so if there are children that have parents who have strong attitudes about sexual health (or rather, the lack of it), it will be harder to make an influence on these young people.
As the core team I will be working with are all volunteers (not being paid), sometimes it will be hard to motivate them to do their work on time in an organised manner. The same applies to the student sexual health ambassadors I will be training. The most important thing is the behaviour and attitudes of the ambassadors as I am relying on them to act as effective representatives at each of their schools to create a real effect. This is why the selection process must be rigorous to find enthusiastic self motivated individuals with good references, additionally I will carefully be monitoring their progress, though as I will not be around all the time it will be difficult to know how effective they are sometimes.

Financial Management Principles:

There will not solely be one person responsible for finances. There will be a Finance Officer; however any financial transactions they prepare must be reviewed by the Executive Directors. There will also be a Fundraising Officer who will collaborate closely with the Finance officer; however the role of the fundraising officer will primarily involve researching and submitting funding applications to trusts as well as managing fundraising events.
The finance officer will record all incoming cheques and cash and ensures the security of these until they are banked. They will ensure the financial sustainability of GF40 by maintaining up to date records of all assets and creating budgets. The finance officer will oversee spending by both team members and the organisation as a whole. So they will manage a petty cash float subject to cash count and checks by the executive directors whenever a top up is asked for. They will be keeping record of all receipts, signatures etc to manage funds, all team members will be responsible for handing in their receipts and signing off their expenses in an expenses book.

Fundraising:

As this project is part of the overall Youth Sexual Health Advocacy and Guidance (GF40) initiative, the core team will be working on a variety of events and applying for funding from several organizations to raise the required funds for both our global and UK based projects.
On World AIDS Day in December 2010 we will be holding a comedy fundraiser event, for which we are about to start selling tickets at £20 each. We have contacted and confirmed the comedians that will perform that night and we have contacted local businesses to donate gift baskets that we can auction on the night to raise further money. We are also applying for grants from various organizations including Global Changemakers who have awarded us £5000. Additionally as Outreach Coordinator, I will be galvanizing our supporters to hold their own fundraising events to help us raise money for the project.

Module 3: Evaluating

2010-08-15T07:59:00.000-07:00

1. The 3 major assumptions and key things I want to learn more about:

· The particular schools across the city of Portsmouth that will be interested in having Youth Sexual Health Ambassadors from this project.

· The possible funders that can support my project financially and in partnership with them.

· The number of young ambassadors that can be educated about sexual health from our training session and act as sexual health advisors effectively across the schools of the city of Portsmouth.

2. An evaluation plan for the project.

Project title: Youth Sexual Health Advocacy and Guidance: Portsmouth

Project Manager: Maherunesa Khandaker

Purpose of evaluation:

The purpose and scope of my project evaluation is to convey to the main project partners and funders the overall outcomes of the project and the impact of the project to the target group, and to present them with the accurate information about how the money and support from them was applied.

Additionally, during the evaluation I aim to learn more about any requirements of the participants in teaching and advising about sexual health in their schools and what changes could be implemented to address any problems and thus make the ambassadors and future ambassadors better equipped to act as sexual health advisors in their school communities. Also the evaluation will help to aid the development of similar projects in other cities across England under the same initiative (GF40/Youth SHAG). Moreover the evaluation will allow me to review the effectiveness of the project and the impact of the project, I want to be able to see where I can make improvements so I can try new approaches to design and run successful projects.

Involvement of Stakeholders: The following people will be involved in the evaluation:

Student Sexual Health Ambassadors: We will continue to involve the trained student sexual health ambassadors by asking for feedback during and at the end of the project. Individual feedback and feedback in groups will be asked for, they will be asked about what they achieved through the project.

Maherunesa Khandaker – As coordinator of this particular project I will be managing the evaluation and writing up a final report. Furthermore I will visit each of the schools in Portsmouth every 3 months to check on the progress of the project.

Executive Directors of GF40 (Heather and Scott): Will be offering their views on this project to see how it can develop and be implemented in other cities in the UK.

Head teachers of the ambassadors – when the ambassadors start putting their training to use in their schools, the outreach coordinator (myself) will inquire from the head teachers of each school to know how they are impacting the sexual health of the individuals in their schools (i.e. lower dropout rates because of pregnancies).

Partners and funders – The partners and funders will offer support about what they anticipate and in the evaluation. They can also provide a formal format for writing the evaluation report. They will read the final evaluation report and can give feedback/ask questions.

Indicators of achievement:
Objective 1: To have a training event in August 2011 which will gather 25 student ambassadors from different schools in Portsmouth district who will be trained to act as a sexual health advisors in their schools.
Indicators:
•The number of students who complete the training session.
•The number of students who continue to act as sexual health ambassadors in their schools.

Evidence required	How often/ When	Obtained from
1. Number of young people who start training	-At start	GF40 core team (Maherunesa, Heather, Scott, Lucy)
2. Number of young people who complete training	-At end of training	GF40 core team
3. Statements from participants about what they gained from attending training	-At end of training	Outreach Coordinator (Maherunesa Khandaker)
4. Statements from sexual health ambassadors about project and its impact	-3,6 and 9 months after training	Outreach Coordinator
5. Statement from Headmasters	-3,6 and 9 months after training	Outreach Coordinator

Objective 2:

Receive offers of interest from other schools after publishing an article/report about the project in the local newspaper/TV news station.

Indicators:
• A published story in the newspaper/a TV news report about the Youth Sexual Health Advocacy and Guidance project in Portsmouth

• Head teachers/teachers/students of other schools read about this and contact us to implement the project in their schools

Evidence required

How often/

When

Obtained from

1. A copy of the published newspaper/recording of TV news report

-3 months after training

Media officer

2. Letters/emails/calls from people who have heard about the project

-After publishing of report

Outreach coordinator

Baseline information: Before training young ambassadors we are conducting a survey to assess what aspects of sexual health education need further addressing, we are using survey monkey and distributing survey using our networks. The survey has already been created and is currently being distributed, from this we shall create a report and form the baseline information.
Evaluation and tools technique: The GF40 core team will develop questions to be used in a feedback procedure, asking about method of training, the training content, the idea of the project. After training and during their use of their skills at their schools they will be given more feedback questions to answer. At the end of the first academic year of the project the participants will be asked to fill out a group feedback pack.

After the training the Outreach Coordinator will visit the schools every 3 months where the project has been implemented to observe how the ambassadors are impacting their schools.

Logistical and resources consideration;
Time: Our evaluation will take place at the end of training of the ambassadors, then throughout the project once it has been implemented in schools. After six months of being implemented in schools we will have written reports to major partners and funders, and the progress of our ambassadors in offering sexual health advice in schools. The project will be reviewed every 2 weeks by the core team of GF40.

Money: Our main costs will be for the purchase of teaching aids and materials (like posters, leaflets), travel and food expenses for evaluation stakeholders (for visiting project sites)

People: The core team of GF40 (the executive directors and the outreach coordinator) will be responsible for managing the project and evaluation. We will also get assistance from partners and funders.

Approach to the analysis of information: Reports made fortnightly will be reviewed and comments on what methods worked and what did not will be examined every month with a wider discussion by the core GF40 team with the ambassadors. Amendments can be made to the project throughout the project, then by the end of the first year conclusive reports about the success of the project can be submitted.

Reporting and communication of outcomes/learning:

At the end of the first academic year that project has been implemented, the final conclusive report will be presented and will be shared with our partners and funders. We will view it as a learning model that will aid us in the running of similar projects in other cities of the UK to reduce teenage pregnancy rates and generally improve youth sexual health. We will communicate with our various partners and funders through our outreach coordinator to further share the results of the project, and the executive directors will also exchange ideas with other organizations.

Module 2: Role of the Project Manager

2010-08-07T16:23:00.000-07:00

1. As Project Manager it is important to be a part of the team whilst maintain authority, I would do this in the following ways:
1. I would jointly set aims and targets with those I work with, so they feel involved in decisions, though in my position of authority I will have the main say in which notions will pass and take place.
2. Then I would clearly define these objectives in writing for accountability. This would include dates, deadlines, and numbers so everyone in the team knows what to expect.
3. I would communicate clearly with my team on a regular basis, I’d ask them how they are getting on with their work and I would keep them updated on all developments. I will ensure that I am always available for my team should they ever need to discuss anything.
4. As project manager I would always lead by example and follow through all the plans made for the project efficiently. If there are any problems with the project or staff, as Project Manager I would ensure to address any performance issues with the team.

2. Project timeline:
September to December 2010: Applying for funding from trusts, organisations, individuals (to be done by Finance and Legal Officers). Organising a major fundraising event (comedy night in London) and promoting for this event (To be done by Outreach, Events and Marketing Officers).
October: Official launch ceremony with patron and key team members and press conference.
December 2010: Fundraising night on World AIDS Day (all team to be present)
January-February 2011: Recruitment of participants for first GF40 forum in Italy. (by Executive Directors)
February-June 2011: Organising global forum with team, keeping recruited participants up to date through weekly emails (by Outreach officer). Organisation will include the Executive directors training the team in public speaking, how to organise other young people, how to teach young people about basic sexual health.
May 2011: Put out call for applications to participate in UK Sexual Health Forum (by Marketing and Communications Officer).
July 2011: First GF40 event to train 40 young people on how to become community sexual health ambassadors, taking place in Italy. In the last week of July interviews will be held regarding participants of UK Forum.
August 2011: Training of UK ambassadors (by Directors and Outreach Officer) commences and takes place over 4 Saturdays.
From September 2011: Ambassadors will work in their own school communities, empowered by training provided by GF40.

3. Financial Management of Project
There will not solely be one person responsible for finances. There will be a Finance Officer; however any financial transactions they prepare must be reviewed by the Executive Directors. There will also be a Fundraising Officer who will collaborate closely with the Finance officer; however the role of the fundraising officer will primarily involve researching and submitting funding applications to trusts as well as managing fundraising events.
The finance officer will record all incoming cheques and cash and ensures the security of these until they are banked. They will ensure the financial sustainability of GF40 by maintaining up to date records of all assets and creating budgets. The finance officer will oversee spending by both team members and the organisation as a whole. So they will manage a petty cash float subject to cash count and checks by the executive directors whenever a top up is asked for. They will be keeping record of all receipts, signatures etc to manage funds.

4. How the sexual health ambassadors will know principles that affect them:
They will be told the basic principles on their first training day and also be given a handout with guidelines they should endeavour to follow, in addition to this there will be a participants’ only section of the website which will have the basic principles written.

Steps to monitor effectiveness of specific team members:
-I would personally follow up on team members weekly
-I would implement a peer evaluation programme; at the end of each month I would ask team members to evaluate the performance of their peers.
-Additionally I would create a self evaluation form, where the team member assesses their own performance, where they have succeeded, where they could improve and how they could improve.

How I will ensure rewards in the project team and how I will know they have been effective:
Rewards are difficult considering that everyone working on this project is a volunteer, so monetary rewards are not quite possible, however much positive reinforcement will be given and volunteers will be made to feel appreciated for their time through much thanking. I may introduce a team member of the month blog on the website, or alternatively write about all the great things the team have done in a newspaper, mentioning names so they feel personally satisfied with the work they have done.

5. Key areas of the project and Sample Job Description:
Key areas: Marketing and Communications, Finance, Press and Media, Fundraising, Legal and Policy, Outreach and volunteer development

Job Description: Outreach Officer (adapted from Job Description before the e-course)

Global Forum 40 (GF40) is a unique new initiative led by young people for young people, creating a self sustaining model of peer facilitated learning about issues of health. We aim to equip those of a younger generation with information, knowledge, resources and skills on issues which have an adverse impact on young people, or on issues where treatment or preventative education is lacking. Acting as a bridge between local traditions and communities, and new ideas and practices, young people become leaders in society, empowered by our scheme to create real, tangible and lasting social change in the field of sexual health.

The Role
The role involves heading up outreach and engagement. GF40 needs to work on ways that we can engage with and have a positive effect on more young people.

We are currently working on the new website which needs to be launched with a "get involved" section where we can engage with young people at whatever level they feel comfortable with, from simply signing a petition to setting up a youth and student group. The Outreach Officer will be responsible for developing and directing this section of our organisation.

We are also working towards holding UK forum to cascade train young sexual health leaders in local communities here in the UK. In this arena the Outreach Officer will be pivotal in creating this forum and the recruitment of participants.

Key responsibilities:
- Galvanizing action from young people around issues of sexual health
- Creating innovative and imaginative ways young people can engage with GF40
- Ensuring GF40 is accessible to young people
- Raising the profile of GF40 amongst young people as a reference point for sexual health campaigning

Hours of work:
3 hours a day over 4 days a week

Skills:
Essential
- A thorough understanding of Global Forum 40's aims and objectives and the way we work.
- To work with people in a co-operative style
-Innovative ideas
-Excellent verbal and written communication
- To be able to inspire and enthuse young people (15-25) to take action
Desirable
-Prior experience with campaigns/in the voluntary sector
-Clear public presentation skills
-Events/Media experience

Exercise 1B: Making a difference in my community

2010-07-31T14:41:00.000-07:00

What will be different in my community as a result of the project?

My project aim is to train a group of 15 15-20 year olds in my city in the UK on the topic of sexual health and explaining safe sex to 12-18 year olds in schools around my city in order to provide basic education on sex and relationships to lower the number of unplanned, teenage pregnancies in my community and consequently stop young girls from dropping out of their education.

The background summary for the project.

This project is part of Global Forum 40 – a youth initiative creating a self sustaining model of peer facilitated learning about issues of health. GF40 aims to equip those of a younger generation all around the globe with information, knowledge, resources and skills on issues which have an adverse impact on young people, or on issues where treatment or preventative education is lacking.

Where GF40 is a global initiative with the aim of creating a forum which will be attended by young people all over the world, my role as Outreach Coordinator is to target improving young people’s health services in UK communities. In relation to this course I have chosen to work on lowering the number of unplanned pregnancies in teenagers in my home region, which has a higher number of teenage pregnancies than the regional and national average.

In this project we primarily aim to provide our peer-to-peer sexual health service to 12-18 year olds. I am playing a key role in the management of this particular community project, however I am being helped by other members of the GF40 team. The Executive Directors will be providing me with support in terms of the overall direction of the project (for example, when we decide to expand the project to other UK communities), the Finance officer will help me with the budget and the Marketing officer will help me to produce branded documentation. Having different people assigned to the team will ensure the project aims are met more efficiently.

The main activity of this particular project will involve recruiting 15 young people aged 15-20 who will then undergo 5 hours of training (by myself and/or my colleagues) every Saturday for 4 weeks at a local community centre room which can be hired out. During this training they will learn about basic sexual health and the consequences of poor sexual health and how to talk to their peers about related sensitive issues. These 15 young people will then return to their schools, with GF40’s support, will hold classroom presentations at their schools. In addition to this, they will be encouraged to run a peer to peer sexual health chat every Friday lunchtime at school, where both girls and boys will be encouraged to privately talk to the appointed sexual health ambassador at their school. Free condoms will also be supplied, which can be given out at the advice sessions.

The project will be implemented from September 2011, as this will be after Global Forum 40 Italy, so there will be more UK sexual health ambassadors trained and added to the team to help me with the project. Additionally I will also have more experience by then, particularly after observing training of global participants in Italy. September is ideal as this is the start of the new academic year in the UK, this project (in terms of holding Friday advice sessions) will run for a year. If successful it will continue for longer and will expand to other communities.

GF40 is applying for funding from various bodies, and already has been awarded some funding from Global Changemakers. The project aims to provide effective sexual health advice by creating a peer to peer advice system, where the advisors will be fully equipped with extensive knowledge on sexual health; considering that many teenage pregnancies are a result of a lack of sexual health education, the aim is to drastically reduce the number of teenage pregnancies in my area over the next 5 years.

The objectives

In May 2011 put out a call for applications to become a “Community Sexual Health Ambassador”, this role will be advertised by contacting all the secondary schools in the area. The application will ask for the applicant to be aged 15-20. Interviews will be held in July, and training will commence in August over 4 Saturdays. The training materials will be produced and provided by the Global Forum 40 team. We will look for one or two people to hire per school.

-In addition to basic sexual health knowledge, information that the ambassadors will be taught to give out will include the addresses of local NHS sexual health clinics.

-In September 2011, the ambassadors will be encouraged to give an assembly, followed by classroom presentations on their new advice sessions and basic sexual health. We will push for schools to implement the Friday lunchtime sexual health advice sessions from the beginning of October.

-The target is that by September 2012, per school that has taken part in the programme, the number of teenage pregnancies will be reduced by 80%, which will consequently lower the drop out rate (for this reason)

The challenges and risks I face in achieving the project aim.

As this project relies on young people (aged 16-20) to act as mentors in their own communities, they face the challenge of juggling this role with their school or college timetables, so it will be challenging to find individuals who are committed and organised enough to take on the role and achieve the project aims within a given timescale.

Cultural attitudes among young people in the UK are hard to shift, not necessarily attitudes towards sex, but young people here lack willingness to take those who are trying to teach them seriously. So the young people who we aim to educate may not cooperate with or listen to us.

Additionally parents have an overriding influence on their children, so if there are children that have parents who have strong attitudes about sexual health (or rather, the lack of it), it will be harder to make an influence on these young people.

Problem Tree: UK Youth Pregnancy

2010-07-27T15:19:00.000-07:00

I have created a problem tree to focus on young (under 18) pregnancies in the UK. This tree shows the root causes of the problem and the impact that this eventually has on those it affects.

Although GF40 deals with a variety of sexual health issues in young people, I have focused primarily on young pregnancies in the UK. With GF40, the plan is to create a UK Forum of young people, who we will train to become sexual health ambassadors in their own communities.

With GF40 I am most interested in changing one of the primary root causes of young pregnancies: that is the lack of access to youth friendly sexual health services and information. The plan is to tackle this issue one community at a time. For example in my hometown I plan to train around 10 young sexual health ambassadors who will inform other young people on sexual health matters by visiting schools and running workshops with young people in the area. This will hopefully slowly, but surely, build up like a ripple effect so that young people in my community, and then other communities will be more informed, and have more access to information, about sexual health consequently taking more precaution in their relationships, which should lead to lower incidences of young pregnancies.

Introduction

2010-07-19T16:29:00.000-07:00

Representing the UK at My Summit 2010 (I'm in the white shirt!)

Welcome to my blog! I will be using this to document my progress throughout the Project Management E-course run by Aid For Smiles. This first blog is to provide an insight into some of the work I do.

Ultimately there is nothing more rewarding than working alongside vivacious young people to improve the lives of other young people and future generations. Considering that we are all interdependent and affected by similar issues on both a local and global scale, so whether addressing issues from education to healthcare, we all have an opinion on such topics and we should all have the power to affect meaningful change, including young people. In fact, as young people often have the enthusiasm and forward thinking minds, I believe that we hold the key to influencing policy in new, exciting and effective ways. This is what truly drives me to participate in youth programmes. My enthusiasm in working for young people has also lead me to run for Trustee at the British Youth Council

In terms of my own background, I am going to study Law in London this September. I began volunteering with DFID funded youth project Platform 2 in 2008, when I had a 10 week placement in Ghana. Back in the UK, through various training days, I have been able to explore the frameworks that allow social injustices to thrive internationally and how to create positive change. This inspired me to set up women’s empowerment project Arohon in Bangladesh alongside my elder sister. Through this project I hope to provide women in Bangladesh with the basic resources and skills to have fulfilling careers and be able to carve their own paths in life.

I have recently represented young people from the UK at the G8 and G20 summits in Canada, where I discussed a number of topics including maternal health. This particular topic lead me to take interest in Global Forum 40, a new initiative led by young people for young people, creating a self sustaining model of peer facilitated learning about issues of health. We aim to equip those of a younger generation with information, knowledge, resources and skills on issues which have an adverse impact on young people or on issues where treatment or preventative education is lacking.

As young people I feel that we in particular hold the key in winning the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. After all it is on our generation and future generations that these problems could potentially have the greatest impact, if they aren’t addressed now. I am working as the outreach coordinator, in my role I look forward to hearing what young people believe can be done to make positive progress in the field of sexual health and encouraging them to take action and make real change.

To help me with my work, I look forward to participating in the Aids for Smiles Project Management E-course to learn new skills to make my role more effective in galvanizing action from young people around the issues of health addressed by Global Forum 40.