Learning and re-learning the power of youth voices

Adolescents in Tanzania are shaping their own futures. More than project participants, they are co-creators helping to drive—and examine—progress.

The AHADI project ( Accelerated Hope and Development for Urban Adolescents in Tanzania ) runs in Dar es Salaam and Dodoma from 2022 to 2029. It supports girls and boys ages 10–24.

The project challenges unequal gender norms, strengthens sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and works to prevent sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). Global Affairs Canada funds AHADI. World Vision Canada, World Vision Tanzania and three local rights-based partners—Kiota Women’s Health and Development, Babawatoto, and the Tanzania Home Economics Association—run it together.

“I used to feel like I had no value in the community… The project has helped me understand myself and realize my value in the community around me.” —female AHADI participant, age 17

What AHADI does

The project uses a peer-mentoring approach called the AHADI Impact Model (AHADIIM), where youth support one another as they learn together. Through a set of training modules, they learn to pinpoint (and challenge) unequal gender norms, develop positive attitudes towards SRHR, and prevent and reduce SGBV and abuse.

AHADI works with marginalized youth, both in-school and out-of-school, including groups often excluded from services like unhoused adolescents, those involved in transactional sex and youth who use substances.

Involving adolescents in analyzing project results

As a gender-transformative and adolescent-led project, AHADI is exploring approaches that empower participants and strengthen their sense of ownership and partnership. In fiscal year 2025, this involved bringing them into the project’s results monitoring and evaluation activities.

In October and November 2024, AHADI piloted a gender-responsive, participatory approach for our Annual Outcome Monitoring (AOM) process, with youth perspectives at the centre of the analysis.

How it worked

• Focus group discussions were held with 153 out-of-school adolescents (79 female, 74 male). These were among the first cohort of AHADIIM participants to complete 18 months of modules on health and gender equality.
• A follow-up workshop brought the participants together to analyze the qualitative data and pinpoint key themes.

Adolescents helped facilitate the focus group discussions. This gave them opportunity to apply leadership skills and shape the process itself.

The approach built on lessons learned from World Vision Canada’s Youth Empowered grant, which tested a girl-led model for participatory monitoring in the previous year. (These learnings can be found on page 104 of our 2024 Annual Results Report.) This is part of World Vision’s approach to integrate more participatory processes across its projects to help ensure they are youth-led.

“After gaining this education, I can stand and confidently express my opinions, which I couldn’t do before.” —male AHADI participant, age 20

What we measured

The AHADI AOM process measured our results against goals related to 1) sexual and reproductive health and rights, 2) gender equality and 3) empowerment. It went further by engaging adolescent participants, asking them to describe the progress and change they observed and identify reasons behind it.

This qualitative approach captured changes in attitudes, beliefs and behaviours related to gender equality that quantitative measurements do not. The rich data from the focus group discussions helped us understand which aspects of the project are working best for our adolescent participants.

During the data analysis workshop, 18 AHADIIM Lead Adolescent Volunteers and eight adult Promoters (partner staff who support and mentor the Lead Adolescent Volunteers) worked with project partners and staff. They identified focus group discussion themes related to gender equality, SRHR, SGBV prevention and response, health system strengthening and economic empowerment, along with feedback on the AHADIIM curriculum itself.

Through the participatory, qualitative methodology, the AOM sought participants’ perspectives on:

• The most significant changes observed in their lives and how AHADI had contributed.
• Better ways to track these types of changes going forward.
• Feedback on the AHADIIM curriculum and group structure.

“I used to think reproductive health was only for married people or families, not young people. After learning, I see it’s important for young people to know how to protect their health.” —male AHADI participant, age 21

This process also helped to qualitatively assess progress toward the project’s key performance indicators at the outcome and output levels, such as:

1. Number of AHADIIM Promoters and Lead Adolescent Volunteers trained to help boys become advocates for gender equality.
2. Number of marginalized girls and boys (including adolescents living on the streets and people with disabilities) engaged in AHADIIM groups.
3. Proportion of adolescents and youth who visited a health facility for sexually transmitted and blood-borne infection testing in the past 12 months
4. Proportion of participants aged 15–24 satisfied with health services.
5. Proportion of girls and boys aged 15–24 who feel confident applying soft skills and employability knowledge.

What we heard from the adolescents

Participants reported stronger health knowledge—especially on SRHR and nutrition—and a clear rise in self-confidence among both males and females. Many reported feeling more assertive, more secure in their own judgment and more independent in decision-making—these are critical aspects of youth empowerment.

Participants also described shifts in attitudes toward gender equality. They noted that the AHADIIM groups encouraged them to question rigid roles and work for fairness in their homes and communities. Training in financial literacy and entrepreneurship was also highly valued.

“I used to think certain tasks were for boys and others for girls. Now I know that all tasks are equal. For example, a woman can do construction work, and a man can cook and wash dishes.” —female AHADI participant, age 18

After 18 months in AHADIIM, adolescents commonly reported improvements in:

• Self-respect and confidence.
• Knowledge of their rights and the courage to stand up for others.
• Sharing household responsibilities more fairly.
• Visiting health facilities and understanding that accessing health services is their right.
• SRHR knowledge and use of contraception.
• Nutrition knowledge and healthier eating.
• Reducing risky behaviours like substance use and unprotected sex.
• Inclusion of people living with HIV and AIDS, people with disabilities and people with albinism.

The participatory process built ownership. Youth stayed engaged, shared enthusiastically and gained foundational skills in qualitative research. Together, they analyzed findings and made recommendations. In fiscal year 2025, the AHADI team took action on that feedback.

How AHADI responded to adolescents’ recommendations

Based on feedback from focus group discussions and the analysis workshop, AHADI:

1. Increased efforts to include adolescents and youth with disabilities in AHADIIM groups, with more targeted support and outreach to parents.
2. Provided community education on adolescent nutrition for parents and caregivers through meetings and sports events.
3. Strengthened curriculum modules where needed, ensuring supervisors cover all material.
4. Increased adolescent and community awareness of AHADI and its goals, through educational sessions and sports events.
5. Offered more frequent refresher trainings for AHADIIM Promoters, as suggested by Lead Adolescent Volunteers.
6. Procured benches for health facilities, which created more welcoming spaces and boosted adolescent visits. (This is part of AHADI’s broader work to make health services more friendly and accessible to adolescents. Between June 2024 and June 2025, adolescent health facility visits increased by 67 per cent among 10–14-year-olds, 30 per cent among 15–19-year-olds and 25 per cent amongst 20–24-year-olds.)

“I have gained confidence and learned to love and take care of myself.” —female AHADI participant, age 20

Four lessons learned through the participatory process

1. AHADI has learned and “re-learned” the power of adolescent leadership in all aspects of the project. While this belief is fundamental to AHADI, it was reinforced yet again through their qualitative analysis of the project’s key metrics. Insights from the young participants have improved the quality of SHRH and gender equality programming in meaningful ways.

2. Further work is needed to increase the uptake of health services by adolescents. Following the AOM, AHADI led training for healthcare providers and community health workers in gender-responsive, adolescent-friendly services. This led to increased adolescent visits for health services, including testing for HIV and sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections, mental health screening and SGBV screening. Health facilities also improved their privacy and youth feedback mechanisms, with adolescent satisfaction rising from 92.4 per cent at the baseline in 2022 to 98.7 per cent by March 2025. In fiscal year 2026, AHADI will finish refurbishing select health facilities and provide updated equipment to the remaining facilities. Adolescent participants are members of the monitoring team that helps ensure these updates are adolescent-centered.

3. Inclusion must continue to expand so that AHADIIM groups welcome those most often left out. AHADI continues to strive to include marginalized adolescents. For example, the participatory process helped staff develop a strategy to meet with the families of people with disabilities to talk to them about AHADI’s benefits for adolescents and answer their questions. This has encouraged more adolescents with disabilities to join the project. Improvements to health facilities, such as the addition of benches noted above, are also helping to improve access and inclusion.

4. Partnering closely with local, rights-based organizations is building ownership and sustainability. Through AHADI, World Vision is working with three local rights-based partners who are trusted entities in their urban wards. AHADI’s work in localization with these partners has led them to assume full implementation of activities, leading government ministry engagement meetings and coordinating well with the World Vision AHADI team.

With youth as partners and drivers of the project, AHADI is learning and adapting in a dynamic urban context. Rich and thoughtful feedback from our adolescent participants is yielding tangible improvements to the project’s SRHR and gender equality work.