25th to 26th April 2019, was a busy but exciting time for our program officer SRHR and gender equality –Winnie Apio. She attended a strategic grantees inception meeting with HIVOS Southern African Hub. HIVOS in partnership with SIDA and Ford Foundation manages the Regional Fund on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) The Regional SRHR Fund was established in recognition of the critical need for a strategic regional response to collectively address the myriad of SRHR issues in Southern Africa with particular attention to young people and adolescents as well as to provide an opportunity for donors to coordinate their support to SRHR in the region. The Fund currently focuses its efforts on Adolescent and Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (ASRHR) in east and southern Africa (ESA). To do so, it supports civil society responses to a diversity of ASRHR issues that are relevant at both the national and regional levels using grant-making as the main mechanism of support. The HIVOS partners’ inception meeting brought together the 9 youth led and youth focused organizations, funding partners and HIVOS staff over 2 days from 25 – 26 April 2019. The meeting introduced grantees to the Regional SRHR Fund and more specifically, the regional ASRHR Programme and expectations, familiarized grantees with HIVOS processes, policies and procedures and provided an opportunity to establish learning partnerships.
After this meeting, partners are able to do more nuanced work; as together we impact the lives of adolescents and young people in our different countries.