From 3rd to 6th December 2019, Uganda Youth and Adolescents Health Forum in collaboration with the district of Kyegegwa, supported the Youth advocacy change champions in Kyegegwa district to carry out an assessment to collect evidence of the challenges and the experiences of young people concerning SRHR and SGBV in refugee settlement context and the host community.
This assessment involved desktop reviews, qualitative interviews and focus group discussions with The assessment was held with a total of 129 respondents who included representatives from young people living in the settlement and the host communities, health workers, camp management, religious leaders, cultural leaders and representatives from partner organizations including Save the children, Good Neighbours and ACORD.

One of the key outputs of the research was a report that most health workers lack knowledge in provision of youth friendly services both in the settlement and in the host community. For those places that have space for adolescent and youth specific services, they lacked enough staff to handle the large numbers of the young people. Additionally, most of the health centers gave priority to adolescents living with HIV than they did to the other adolescents, through having special days for adolescents in the ART clinic but not in the general clinic.
Additionally, the respondents reported high rates of sexual gender based violence perpetuated mostly by poverty. Furthermore, they pointed out the fact that some forms of violence like rape had become normalized because when the perpetrators are reported, they do not face any recourse and the rapist often goes back home that very day.
The report is still being compiled but the evidence collected by the Youth Advocacy Champions and the documentation they have created, will be used to facilitate lobbying at the level of district officials and other key stakeholders for a District Action Plan to end child marriage and teenage pregnancy.