Evaluation of Community Working Group on Health’s Youth Programme

Background:
Two projects implemented by CWGH and FAMWZ were evaluated. They are part of SAIH’s Zimbabwe program. Two separate evaluation reports were produced and will serve as tools for internal use, with the aim to decide the way forward.

Purpose/objective:
• Establish the impact of the programs and the trainings carried out by CWGH. The impact will be assessed by the behavioural change of participants and the enhanced role of youths within the advocacy work 
• Give recommendations for the future support and assess the relevance in the projects in relation to SAIH policies and advocacy work

Methodology:
A combination of methods was applied, including desk studies, interviews, group discussions and observations of trainings. The team of two Swedish female consultants, one male Zimbabwean consultant and a female Zimbabwean consultant worked in pairs, using the local consultants’ contextual knowledge and communication skills as far as possible. Respondents from CWGH were interviewed in groups or individually, depending on the power relations and issue at hand. Both projects had limited baseline data on some of the progress markers and outcome indicators, therefore the consultants relied on the respondents own account of knowledge transformation and behavioural changes. This was a limitation, but having many stories from various places to compare and asking external observers to give comments increased reliability of findings.

Key findings:
CWGH - Youths had changed their behaviour in terms of abstaining from sex more often and/or staying faithful. There was an increased respect for members of the opposite sex – for example males were no long abusing women. Youths had also become strong enough to withstand peer pressure, keen to engage in protected sex through the use of recommended means, frank in discussion between partners, able to openly and freely talk about condoms plus being more motivated to test for and treat STIs

The CWGH youth programme is successful in empowering youths to become leaders on the local level. The young men and women trained as peer educators have more confidence to speak for themselves and skills to plan, implement and advocate for changes. In terms of influence in the organisation itself the influence of youths is high at the local level, but is decreasing when reaching the top of the organisation. The top leadership does not seem to appreciate the value of youth influence.

The projected did not adequately addressed LGBTI rights.

Recommendations:
CWGH should develop planning and reporting skills in order to be more analytical in terms of skills imparted and number of beneficiaries. Further CWGH should increase the youth influence beyond the youth program into the organisations structures and advocacy work. Also the work on gender should be intensified by increasing the knowledge of women’s sexuality within the organisation and encourage girls’ leaderships skills through specific program. The consultant team found what they named a missing link after the training of youth and recommended that CWGH should collaborate with organisations and government to increase the possibilities for the youths to get a job. CWGH should also broaden the advocacy work at national level to include youth issues and sexual and reproductive rights.

SAIH should work more strategically in the selection of partners and to narrow down the number of areas of work. SAIH has a position in the area of education, and therefore the evaluation team suggested that SAIH might only focus on students’ rights in Zimbabwe. SAIH should increase the knowledge of SRHR within SAIH and partner organizations, and discuss the minimum requirement for partner organisations, for example can a homophobic organisation receive support from SAIH? SAIH should initiate discussion on the content of youth influence amongst the partner organisations of SAIH as the team found that the partners are not fully understanding the reasons for and importance of youth participation and influence. SAIH should continue the open dialogue and transparency in decision making, and the frequent visits to Zimbabwe.