Advocates for Youth's Top Ten Recent Accomplishments
April 2004
Advocates' Successes Included Three Audits and a Move!
In the current, conservative, policy climate, Advocates for Youth refused to back away from its efforts to ensure youth's access to comprehensive sexual health information and services. As a direct result, the organization was targeted for three government audits in an eight-month period. Advocates passed each audit with flying colors. Over eight million Americans learned about this tactic of intimidation as stories appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, JAMA, ABCnews.com, Youth Today, and OMB Watch, and on KGO Radio San Francisco, while an Associated Press article on the subject appeared in 33 newspapers. When Advocates and colleague organizations exposed the use of audits to intimidate those federal grantees that oppose abstinence-only-until-marriage policies, political pressure on many HIV/AIDS organizations subsided.
Then, redirecting its energies, and with generous assistance from a former Board member, Advocates for Youth searched for the perfect new offices. Once the new suite had been identified, creative staff worked with an architect to plan the layout and décor. After Labor Day, Advocates' staff settled happily into the bright, youthful, and delightful new "digs."
Advocates Helped Make EC More Easily Available in Hawaii
Advocates worked with the Healthy Mothers/Healthy Babies Coalition of Hawaii to improve adolescents' access to emergency contraception (EC). The Coalition surveyed hospitals, family planning clinics, and rape crisis centers about women's access to EC. Then, Advocates for Youth sponsored a Washington state pharmacist to visit Hawaii to educate legislators, practitioners, and advocates about Washington's use of collaborative practice law that makes EC more easily available. As a result, Hawaii's House of Representatives and Senate passed just such a bill. The law, signed by the Governor, took effect in July 2003. Hawaii's pharmacists can now provide EC to women without a doctor's prior prescription, relying on collaborative practice agreements with physicians.
Advocates Assisted Reproductive Health Providers in Latin America to Make Services Youth Friendly
Advocates and Instituto de Educacion y Salud (IES) trained 120 health center personnel in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia on youth-friendly services. As a result, 54 health centers redesigned their services to be more youth-friendly and to fully involve youth in programmatic decisions. The original trainees then trained 439 other health care providers and 117 youth, and two Bolivian hospitals set aside space to deliver services for youth only. Evaluation indicates that all of the participating health centers except one increased levels of youth involvement, and some demonstrated increased use of services by youth. From participants' requests, Advocates and IES developed and delivered another eight workshops in the region, providing opportunities for participants to network and to strengthen their skills in building and sustaining youth-adult partnerships.
Advocates Launched a Ground-Breaking Survey of the Needs and Assets of State Teen Pregnancy Prevention Coalitions
Advocates for Youth began an initiative to strengthen the capacity of five state teen pregnancy prevention organizations to integrate science-based practices into all aspects of their work. The project will build internal capacities (leadership, board development, strategic planning, fundraising, and public relations) and external capacities (public education, World Wide Web and library services, professional development, training, research and data collection, and local council development).
Utilizing an innovative "change management" approach, Advocates will provide the organizations with resources, training, technical assistance, and opportunities to network. To measure organizational capacity at baseline and over time, Advocates for Youth and the Center for Applied Research and Training, Inc. (CARTA) developed a unique self-assessment tool. Board members, executive directors, and project administrators in each teen pregnancy prevention organization assessed the strengths and needs of their organization, identified areas for technical assistance and training, and constructed a strategic action plan focused on science-based practices.
Advocates' Media Project Reached 47 Million Americans with Positive Sexual Health Images and Information through the Viacom Initiative
Advocates' Los Angeles-based Media Project became an active partner in media giant Viacom's landmark HIV/AIDS prevention initiative. The Media Project leveraged its Hollywood relationships to provide information briefings, research, script review, and character development for Viacom's networks (CBS and UPN) and cable companies (BET, MTV, and TNN). Staff focused much attention on shows with large African American audiences, including girlfriends, One-on-One, The Proud Family, and Half and Half. As a result, as many as 47 million viewers saw shows that depicted positive parent-child communication, got messages normalizing condom and contraceptive use for sexually active youth, learned more about peer pressure and positive body image, and saw stories about living with HIV.
Under Advocates' Spanish Language Media Initiative, staff built relationships and provided resources to television studios and networks in the United States and in Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela. As a result, many Spanish language shows that air in the United States incorporated sexual health messages. The Initiative's successes included novelas (soap operas) such as La Ley del Silencio, Prisonera, Medicos, Alma Herida, Barrio Latino, Te Amare en Silencio, and the new, Hispanic version of Sex and the City. Staff also supported MTV Latin America in launching a sexual health campaign throughout the region.
Advocates Brought "Science vs. Ideology" to the National Sex Education Debate
In the political debate over sex education, Advocates crafted a media strategy to highlight the Bush administration's abstinence-only policy as one rooted in ideology over science. Advocates continually raised the issue in the media, including the New York Times, Atlanta Constitution Journal, Seattle Times, The Nation, Fox News Channel's Heartland, BBC Washington Bureau, and National Public Radio's Justice Talking, among others. News and editorials that echoed this theme appeared in over 50 newspapers and magazines, reaching more than 37.5 million readers.
Advocates worked with members of Congress and the press to expose the government's removal of a science-based condom fact sheet from the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This work resulted in articles in 16 newspapers and news magazines with a readership of 11 million—including the Boston Globe, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Newsweek—and the posting of a new, albeit less user-friendly, condom fact sheet on CDC's Web site.
Finally, to underscore the difference between science and ideology, staff researched, wrote, and widely-disseminated 18 new fact sheets on adolescent sexual health as well as Science and Success: Sex Education and Other Programs That Work to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, HIV & Sexually Transmitted Infections. Science and Success identified 19 programs that have been shown to reduce at least two sexual risk behaviors and/or to result in reductions in teen pregnancies or sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among young people. None of these programs is eligible for funding under the current abstinence-only policy.
Advocates' Web Sites Reached over Three Million Visitors in One Year
Advocates' Web sites grew ever better during the past year—offering online peer information and services, a special sex education center for parents, and action centers for youth and adults. Together, these sites—AdvocatesforYouth.org, TheMediaProject.com, YouthResource.com (for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth) AmbienteJoven.org (for Spanish speaking GLBT youth), MySistahs.org (for young women of color), YouthHIV.org (for HIV-positive youth), and YouthShakers.org (for youth activists around the world) hosted three million unique visitors in 2003.
For many of the young visitors to Advocates' five "for youth, by youth" sites, the support and information they receive from Advocates' peer educators is invaluable and sometimes, life-saving. Recently, one young visitor wrote:
"YouthResource has been invaluable to me as a bisexual youth from a rural area because I otherwise had very limited opportunity to interact with knowledgeable and supportive adults, or even peers who are going through what I was going through. I don't know that without the support I received by using peer educators and the links they recommended, I would have been able to stick it out at my school and be where I am today."
Advocates Put Youth at the Center of HIV Prevention Efforts in Three Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa
In sub-Saharan Africa, Advocates continued its partnerships with four youth-led organizations: YOHO in Botswana, Youth Action Rangers of Nigeria (YARN), and Township AIDS Project (TAP) and South African Centre for Organisational Development (SACCORD) in SouthAfrica.
- With Advocates' technical assistance, YOHO worked with the CDC and the Ministry of Health to create and distribute public education materials on HIV prevention. Advocates also facilitated a cooperative venture between YOHO and Ghetto Artists to create and hold HIV prevention-focused performing arts festivals in two communities. In 2003, YOHO estimated that through the Dzolobana Arts Festival in Gaborone, this youth-led organization provided HIV/AIDS prevention messages to over 50,000 youth and life skills-based sex education to over 1,000. YOHO also assisted in collecting over 1,800 units of blood in a concurrent blood drive.
- A youth activist, supported by Advocates, secured a position on Botswana's National AIDS Coordinating Association (NACA)—the agency responsible for allocating HIV/AIDS resources around the country. In the first few months on the NACA, this young person successfully lobbied adult members for a 50 percent increase in funding for youth-oriented HIV prevention programs.
- Advocates assisted its Nigerian partner, YARN, in pressing for more youth members to be appointed to Nigeria's decision-making bodies. Subsequently, a young person was appointed to the national committee for the Global Fund on HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria—the CISGHAN (Civil Society Consultative Group on HIV/AIDS in Nigeria).
- Advocates also worked with youth activists in South Africa toformulate a plan of action to educate the country's future leaders about the importance of comprehensive sex education. Advocates, SACORD, and TAP identified students in colleges, universities, and technical schools to receive training. In workshops—including sessions on behavior change theory, life skills-based HIV prevention education, stigma reduction, advocacy, communication skills, and effective programs—139 post-secondary students were trained to be activists. Since that time, the student activists have reached several thousand post-secondary students on campuses across South Africa.
The Youth of Color Initiative Assists with the Implementation of Effective, Culturally Relevant HIV and Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs
In an effort to address the devastating and disproportionate rates of HIV/AIDS infection among young people of color, Advocates' Youth of Color Initiative solicited nearly 200 organizations and institutions to submit proposals to receive Advocates' assistance around implementing culturally relevant and effective HIV prevention programs.
In 2003, the Initiative chose 20 organizations for general technical assistance (Level I services), six for technical assistance and training (Level II services), and four organizations to receive seed grants to implement integrated projects that address the prevention of both teen pregnancy and HIV and other STIs among youth of color. In the first few months of the Initiative, staff provided training to nearly 200 staff of those selected, such as Bishop State Community College in Mobile, Alabama; Morehouse School of Medicine's IMANI Project in Atlanta, Georgia; and Fresno Barrios Unidos in Fresno, California. Other programs selected for training were in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Washington DC, Georgia, Maryland, California, and Louisiana.
Advocates' Youth Activists Lead the Fight for Comprehensive Sex Education
Advocates' Youth Activist Network (YAN) is composed of over 190 young people from around the country. In 2003, YAN members continued to work intensively on Advocates' nationwide My Voice Counts! Campaign around comprehensive sex education, educating and engaging thousands of their peers in communities around the United States. Advocates' staff provided materials, strategic assistance, and networking opportunities to build the skills of these youth. As a result, YAN members gave media interviews, wrote and published op-eds, organized campus forums, and educated their peers and decision makers on the need for better sex education and more accessible sexual health services for youth.
For example, one YAN member, disturbed by the disproportionate rates of HIV in the African American community, worked for over a year, organizing students to advocate for their university to make condoms more readily available to its students. As a result, eight months after she graduated, she learned that the university had established a condom availability program.
In addition, Advocates' young activists were active in policy work related to sex education in Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, Washington State, Oregon, California, and Minnesota. In Washington, Advocates conducted a training for youth activists, building their capacity to educate others about and advocate for honest sex education. The following week, fifty youth activists traveled to their state capitol in Olympia to support the Health Information for Youth Act, a bill to provide medically accurate information in all sex and health education classes. Largely because of the efforts of these young people, the bill was unanimously passed out of the Senate Health Committee, and although it was stalled in the Senate Education Committee and eventually died, supporters are now strategizing on other legislative and administrative opportunities. Regardless of the legislative outcome, the youth activists received an enormous amount of praise from the adults who also participated in the advocacy day, extensive press coverage, and a unique opportunity to build their skills.
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