Overview

Youth Voices for Agency and Access or ‘YUVAA’- is a flagship family planning program of Pathfinder in India which innovates a strategic mix of social entrepreneurship model and digital SBCC for delivering FP products and services at the doorstep of vulnerable population.

YUVAA is one of the flagship family planning program of Pathfinder being supported by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). The five year program which started in 2018 aims to scale approaches to increase use of modern reversible contraceptives among young married couples (YMCs) and first-time parents (FTPs), aged 15-24 years by promoting healthy timing and spacing of pregnancy (HTSP) in Bihar and Maharashtra. The target group has been largely underserved due to challenges of ensuring equitable access to quality reproductive and sexual health services and social norms guiding fertility choices of young couples. The project is designed to benefit approximately a million young couples through a strong network of young couple social entrepreneurs, also known as YUVAAKARs. The YUVAA program was implemented in five districts, each in Bihar and Maharashtra and benefited over 800,000 young eligible couples. 

Project Activities

• Ensure a gender-synchronized approach that places young people’s needs and perspectives at the center of intervention design. 
• Provide young couples with sources of information, counseling, referrals, and delivery of over-the-counter contraceptive methods through a cadre of trained young couple entrepreneurs, called the Yuvaa Corps. 
• Digital SBCC interventions include innovations such as Virtual Reality tools for social change, App based training of service providers and digital gamification.  
• High standard of data privacy and management procedures facilitating real time data collection for decision making. Mobile phone-based dashboard for monitoring.       
• Developing a private sector service provider network of over 100 facilities and training them on latest FP techniques and information using App based tools such as MPari.  
• Strategic use of audience segmentation techniques for high targeting efficiency and tracking of desired behavior change.  
• Comprehensive baseline and formative studies to generate first-hand information and insight from the field for program design and management.   
• One of its kind Mobile Landscape Study to generate insight into mobile phone usage trends and content consumption pattern of the young target population. 

Project Goals & Results

• Over 400,000 couples reached through the program with various services like doorstep contraceptive delivery, FP counselling and referrals.  
• YUVAA digital interventions reached over 10 million population.
• A team of 600 couple social entrepreneurs also known as Yuvaakaar were trained and active during stages of the implementation.
• Over $81,000 USD sales of products by Yuvaakaars registered. 
• Over 775,000 counselling services provided with eligible couples during the course of the program.
• About 148,000 community group meetings conducted across ten districts for social change and support.
• 119 trained private sector facilities linked for referral services and over 25,000 referral facilitated.
• Success of YUVAA helped raise an additional $100,000 USD to replicate the social entrepreneurship model in urban centers in Bihar.