Get Up, Speak Out (GUSO)
Duration: 2015 - 2017
Background
The GUSO project addressed critical gaps in sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) for young Ghanaians, particularly adolescent girls facing systemic barriers in conservative communities. In societies where discussions around youth sexuality remain taboo, we sought to create enabling environments that recognize adolescents’ rights to comprehensive SRHR information and services. The initiative specifically targeted harmful gender norms and exclusionary practices that prevent young people, especially girls, from making informed decisions about their bodies and futures.
Strategy
Our approach combined service delivery, capacity building, and community transformation through three interconnected pillars:
1. Digital Health Access: The SHE+ Helpline provided confidential, youth-friendly SRHR information and HIV services, overcoming geographical and social barriers to access. This platform served as both an educational resource and crisis intervention channel.
2. Education System Strengthening: We equipped teachers and peer educators with specialized training to deliver rights-based, gender-transformative sexuality education. The curriculum emphasized participatory learning methods to engage students in critical discussions about consent, healthy relationships, and bodily autonomy.
3. Community Norms Shifting: Through targeted engagements with parents, traditional leaders, and local stakeholders, we fostered intergenerational dialogues to reshape attitudes about adolescent sexuality. These interventions challenged harmful stereotypes while building community support for comprehensive sexuality education.
Key Outcomes
The project achieved transformative outcomes across multiple levels of society.
1. Direct service delivery through the SHE+ Helpline reached 10,449 young people with vital SRHR and HIV information, creating unprecedented access to confidential support.
2. Capacity building initiatives resulted in 87% of trained educators demonstrating improved competence in facilitating sensitive SRHR discussions, with measurable changes in classroom dynamics.
3. Most significantly, community attitude shifts among over 17,000 adults created protective environments for youth – evidenced by the remarkable zero reported cases of teenage pregnancies or sexual/gender-based violence in participating North-East region schools during implementation.
These outcomes collectively demonstrate how integrated rights-based approaches can simultaneously empower young people while transforming the social ecosystems that influence their health decisions. The project’s success in harmonizing individual empowerment with community-level change presents a replicable model for adolescent SRHR programming in conservative contexts.