After two years  years of intensive work to establish the regional Adolescents’ programme and promote youth participation at all levels (within IPPF EN Member Associations and IPPF EN regional office), 2006 witnessed a qualitative step forward and has seen the fruit of much broader participation of young people in activities across Europe, the realization of tools and outputs, and capacity building for young people around substantive areas of SRHR. 

Among the most notable outcomes is the creation of the network YSAFE (Youth Sexual Awareness for Europe), initiated by IPPF EN to encourage young people to more actively participate in sexual and reproductive health in IPPF’s member associations throughout the region.

The YSAFE network has been working in close collaboration with the Regional Office for the development of the network's website. Several YSAFE members participated in various events.

IPPF EN's Regional Council has recently approved the amendments to the EN Constitution and Regulations providing a legal place for the YSAFE representatives and giving them voting rights from now on.  

The side meeting began with a drama to highlight the challenge young people can face when needing access to youth friendly services. They continued to explain the challenge to access SRH services in the developing world as well as point out the importance of youth participation when developing and implementing projects that reach young people. Using posters they raised awareness on how young people from both Africa and Europe have taken their own needs in their hands by advocating for better access to services and for greater youth participation in decision making on a national and European level. Next, the young advocates raised awareness on the International, European, African and EU/African political commitments that have been made to address these challenges. During the side meeting, time was set aside for an open debate between the young advocates and the attending JPA members. They successfully held good discussions on how members of the JPA can help young people be heard on their sexual and reproductive health needs. The JPA members showed overall support to young people on SRHR with concrete recommendations. For example, John Bowis, UK MEP, invited the young advocates to give input on reports, Rita Sithole, Mozambique MP, invited the young people to speak at the Parliament, and a Kenya delegate promised to look into the budget lines to make sure that SRHR of young people would be included. The young advocates also presented a statement 'Hear our Voices!' to remind JPA members of how they can support both the issues of SRHR and youth participation as well as better implementation of the existing commitments.

In addition to the side meeting, the young advocates attended other JPA sessions, particularly where health and SRHR were topics. They also had the opportunity to host an IPPF information stand, take part in a demonstration together with CONCORD, as well as have an experience sharing meeting together with active youth volunteers in Slovenia.

Before the EU-ACP JPA held in Ljubljana, young people of the IPPF European Network and Africa Region had already attended the ACP/EU JPA in Kigali, Rwanda.

The IPPF European Network has taken the initiative to build the capacity of a group of young European and African volunteers to raise their voice and build up the contacts with the delegates to the JPA. The Summit Foundation supported the idea and a first action was organized at the JPA in Wiesbaden in spring 2007. This initial exercise was promising and therefore the Summit Foundation decided to continue supporting this initiative. The group present as well in Kigali has managed to build upon their earlier success and continues to raise the attention of the parliamentarians.

The young people, coming from 11 different countries in Europe ( including Francophone and Lusophone countries) approached parliamentarians from their respective countries, bringing to their attention (among other issues) the lack of youth civil society consultation and the non-prioritisation of SRHR in the Country Strategic Papers process. Some of the Parliamentarians which whom in particular the African young people have continued the contact after Wiesbaden, were very happy to meet them again and took the opportunity to discuss also the Joint-EU Africa Strategy. All young people and IPPF staff wore IPPF T-shirts while attending the official programme which made them very visible. They also prepared advocacy actions: they hold an infomation stand which attracted many official members; they wrote and distributed a statement requesting better youth participation in the development of the country strategy papers as well as more funding for health and education and, last but not least, they organised a demonstration in the hall of the JPA holding posters putting forward 3 concrete SRHR problems together with their solutions. Many delegates came to ask questions and MEPs Michael Cashman, Glenys Kinnock, Anne Van Lancker and Thijs Berman congratulated them and encouraged them to follow up with their new ideas. The young people are making progress in making SRHR of young people a point of the agenda: the Co-Chair of the JPA, MEP Glenys Kinnock, discussed with them the importance of better including young people in the JPA process and promised to help organising a fringe meeting on Youth and SRHR in the next JPA in Slovenia. The young people also joined an action organised by other Development NGOs, including Eurostep and Action Aid International, in front of LouisMichel, the EU Commissioner on Development, challenging the latter on his liberal views on development. Finally, the young people managed to have media coverage - they were interviewed by BBC Radio, EUX TV (EP channel) and by SABC (South African Television).

The young people went to the South of Rwanda to visit a project run by the IPPF member Association (ARBEF) and funded by youth initiatives, a sexuality programme developed by the Dutch IPPF Member association (Rutgers Bisso). The project is a response to the growing group of chilldren and youth who lost their even younger brother, sisters, and often other young siblings. This group of youth is extremely vulnerable and the project supports this group by the formation of Child Headed Household (CHH) clubs, where the youth can support each other. They receive a health insurance and have access to HIV/AIDS care and treatment. among their activities are song/danse competition on topic experience was a cultural eye-opener for the young people as well as a great learning in terms of seeing an innovative and succesful programme for young people. (http://www.youthincentives.org/rutgersnisso_groep/youthincentives/Current_Projects/Rwanda )

This advocacy activity follows one of IPPF’s major strategies namely to raise the capacity and the voices of young people in advocacy. The North-South interaction between the young people is mutually beneficial and increases the understanding of the challenges for young people in developing countries while being inspirational in the development of their joint actions.

The SAFE project came to an end in October 2007 with the publication of a Guide for developing policies on SRHR of young people in Europe as well as the organization of a final conference. The results and outcomes of the project were carried forward during the conference. 

The deliverables of the conference also iclude Sexuality Education in Europe – A Reference Guide; a searchable online database regarding a number of variables on adolescent SRHR; a Research Report and another 4 fact sheets on good practice.

Besides these publications, a web game on the right of young people to participate were produced by the young people and a competition on re-packaging safe sex messages was organized.  Winners of the contest (student graphic designers, photographers, youth volunteers) showed the results of their artwork during the final SAFE conference in Brussels.

IPPF European Network, Lund University and the WHO Regional Office for Europe, formed part of this project under the European Commissioned (DG SANCO) funded SAFE project (Sexual Awareness for Europe) in order to promote the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of youth across Europe.

For more information on the final SAFE conference, visit SAFE website