Young people in Tanzania particularly in rural areas, found it difficult to access reproductive health and HIV/AIDS services because most facilities are not youth friendly and are generally geared toward adults. Usually, young people commonly have a lack of awareness on available services, and are restricted from seeking sexual, reproductive health and rights (SRHR) services.
Family planning and reproductive health services have been provided as part of maternal and child health services since their inception in 1974. The perception is that SRH services are for adult women thereby creating barriers to access for youth. Negative attitudes and lack of information about youth sexuality have resulted in the failure of most Tanzanian SRH service providers to provide Youth Family Services (YFS).
YFS is not included in the pre-service training that health staff receive at training institutions. Although the Tanzanian National Policy Guidelines for Reproductive Health and Child Health Services (2003) support young people’s access to SRHR information and services, still, there aremany gaps in its implementation.
Kigoma region is among the regions in the Western part of Tanzania with the highest percentage (25.5%) of teenagers who begin childbearing at young age. Kigoma region presents a higher total fertility rate (TFR) of 6.4 compared to the national TFR of 5.4 children per woman’s life. With far-reaching interventions, CCC has reached more than 20,903 adolescent girls with several impactful localized SRHR and other empowerment supports. The implemented projects were focusing on health, employment, child protection and empowerment on land rights accessibility, social and economic empowerment of youth.