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Back in April, three self-care youth advocates got together to host a podcast on the importance of self-care advocacy. Eight months later, we’re checking in with our youth leaders to explore what they’ve been up since and the role they’re playing to make universal health coverage a reality. Below, get to know more about Bea, Tihut and Richard as they continue advocating for a better world for young people everywhere.
This piece is a part of the SCTG’s 12 Days of UHC 2021 campaign.
It’s been almost two years since COVID-19 turned our world upside down. And as we’ve seen over the past two years, the burden on young people everywhere accessing health services has only increased.
If we hope to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) by 2030, the health and well-being of young people will be critical to their meaningful contribution to build and invest in health systems that serve their unique needs.
By deliberately shifting the power of health into the hands of young people, self-care offers an opportunity for youth to not only better manage their own health, but to improve national and global health outcomes and set up the health system to effectively and efficiently achieve UHC.
And with young people’s voices leading the way, we can unlock innovative new solutions that can accelerate progress to better meet the needs of young people. As we celebrate UHC Day this year, get to know Bea, Richard and Tihut – youth advocates who we’re currently inspired by – as they share why they believe in the untapped potential of self-care practices and interventions for young people to take charge of their own health in ways never before possible.
To further support these youth champions on their advocacy journey, explore their recommendations for integrating self-care into policies and programming here.
Content Development and Knowledge Management Officer, Y-ACT Youth In Action
Name: Beatrice Okech
Age: 25
Residence: Nairobi, Kenya
Education: Masters in Project Planning & Management
App you can’t live without: Spotify
Dream dinner guest: Adele
“For young people to make informed decisions on their sexual and reproductive health, they need access to accurate, reliable and youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health information. My self-care advocacy work revolves around bridging the access gap to youth-friendly services and information to allow youth — especially young women — to take charge of their health.”
I’ve always been one to root for the underdog. In my country, young people are the underdog. While we make up more than 75% of the country’s population, our priorities are often not reflected in key decision-making processes. So advocating for young people has always been a no-brainer because I believe that’s the best way to shift the narrative on the meaningful engagement of young people.
The power of self-care lies in its ability to provide privacy for young people, especially young women in a society where youth actively seeking sexual and reproductive health information and services is often still frowned upon. As such, young people who engage in self-care practices and behaviors are better placed to have increased agency over their sexual and reproductive health.
I’m super excited about self-care for sexual and reproductive health because of the immense potential it has towards advancing global UHC goals. Self-care can create enabling environments for more young people, especially young women, to take charge of their sexual and reproductive health which will no doubt result in improved health outcomes, globally. And these improved health outcomes bring us one step closer to reaching UHC.
Self-care often goes hand in hand with digital platforms that provide much-needed services and information to key populations. My dream for the future is for more young women and girls to have access to these digital platforms – to support them take agency and complete autonomy over their sexual and reproductive health and their lives.
Youth Officer, Young Expert: Tech4Health
Name: Richard Dzikunu
Age: 30
Residence: Belgium
Education: Masters in Development Communications and Digital Communications Leadership
App you can’t live without: The weather app… you need that in Brussels!
Dream dinner guest: The Obamas
“Digital self-care interventions, when designed well, have the potential to increase people’s self-awareness of their health needs and help individuals to self-manage their own health conditions. My work involves advocating to ensure that such digital care interventions are safe and protect the users from harm.”
One thing that led me to advocate for young people is the unfortunate reality that not all young people have a voice. Not all young people have opportunities to be part of global meetings and conferences, opportunities to be part of the decision-making process, opportunities to be engaged from the start.
Those of us who have the opportunity to represent the voices of young people – like I do – need to take advantage of it. If not, all young people will end up being left behind as a result.
I definitely think self-care has the potential to galvanize young people in particular to gain access to health services and information.
In my home country of Ghana, there is often social stigma attached to health services – especially for young people seeking sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services. The stereotypes alone that follow these young people seeking care may prevent them from visiting health facilities or centers in a desire to avoid discrimination. But with self-care, there is potential.
By offering young people the opportunity to access the necessary skills, knowledge and health tools they need within the comfort of their own home, self-care can provide youth with the ability to continue on their health care journey in a judgment-free and safe environment.
I’m most excited about the areas of self-care such as self-testing and self-diagnosis. To be able to sit in the comfort of my own home and be able to take a pregnancy test, or take a covid test, or an HIV test, gives you the liberty to engage in your healthcare journey as and when you want to! It offers you the opportunity to get in the proper mental health space and the time to understand the test’s implications.
Not everyone feels comfortable visiting health facilities in person – other people may learn about their private healthcare choices and their health data may not be secured or confidential. Self-testing and self-diagnosis options offer people comfort and privacy as they access what they need.
With the advent of COVID, the world saw numerous technological changes. Within 2 years, so many things that we thought were impossible – things people thought would take years – were able to develop. COVID showed us that we can innovate and we can do a lot within a short period of time, if we put our minds to it together.
And knowing this, I can see incredible innovation in the future for the healthcare sector – where in the next 10 years, self-care becomes easily and readily accessible for all young people, particularly those in low- and middle-income countries.
Project Advisor DMPA-SC for self-inject, PSI Ethiopia
Name: Tihut Mulugeta
Age: 27
Residence: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Education: Masters of Public Health
App you can’t live without: Telegram
Dream dinner guest: Oprah Winfrey
“As a project advisor for the DMPA-SC pilot project in Ethiopia, I have been engaged in advocacy activities promoting the idea of self-care and DMPA-SC to the Ministry of Health and other important stakeholders including with my fellow coworkers at PSI. Additionally, I have been engaged in promoting the importance of self-care in reaching UHC through blogs, newsletters, podcasts and more.”
I have always believed that young people deserve access to all the information they need in order to make fully-informed decisions about their health and their lives. Therefore, creating platforms of advocacy where young people are able to access and use is important. As a young person, I advocate to young people as I believe we have the ability to make the right choices for ourselves if supported and our voices are heard to make an impact in our lives as well as others.
Self-care is vital for each and every individual as it gives power to oneself to make the right decision. If people are given the chance to practice self-care, they would be empowered enough to keep themselves healthy and lead a better life. This will largely support an individual, community and even the health system allowing it to focus on other activities that need priority.
I’m excited about the feeling of empowerment clients have when provided with self-care interventions that would actually work for them. This feeling can lead to UHC as people value the advantages that self-care brings them and are encouraged to continue practicing these behaviors, too.
In 10 years, I dream of a world where everyone – regardless of age or gender – is treated equally within the health system. A world where new and existing self-care interventions help ease their lives.
To achieve a world where everyone has access to care, we can’t afford to ignore youth voices. Interested in more self-care youth advocacy?
Join our Youth Workstream!
Whether you’re new to the self-care conversation or have been a self-care trailblazer member since our inception, we want to continue elevating your voice! Become a part of the SCTG’s Youth Workstream and lead the charge as we incorporate youth focused needs into our global advocacy priorities — ensuring that young people like you have the power to take control of your healthcare. If you’re interested in joining, send an email to [email protected]
Listen to our youth leaders speak on their priorities in our podcast “Self-Care: For Youth, By Youth”.
With overarching commitments to flexibility in our work, and greater wellbeing for our employees, we want to ensure PSI is positioned for success with a global and holistic view of talent. Under our new “work from (almost) anywhere,” or “WFAA” philosophy, we are making the necessary investments to be an employer of record in more than half of U.S. states, and consider the U.S. as one single labor market for salary purposes. Globally, we recognize the need to compete for talent everywhere; we maintain a talent center in Nairobi and a mini-hub in Abidjan. PSI also already works with our Dutch-based European partner, PSI Europe, and we’re creating a virtual talent center in the UK.
PSI is firmly committed to the meaningful engagement of young people in our work. As signatories of the Global Consensus Statement on Meaningful Adolescent & Youth Engagement, PSI affirms that young people have a fundamental right to actively and meaningfully engage in all matters that affect their lives. PSI’s commitments aim to serve and partner with diverse young people from 10-24 years, and we have prioritized ethics and integrity in our approach. Read more about our commitments to the three core principles of respect, justice and Do No Harm in the Commitment to Ethics in Youth-Powered Design. And read more about how we are bringing our words to action in our ICPD+25 commitment, Elevating Youth Voices, Building Youth Skills for Health Design.
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Since 2017, PSI has been a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact, a commitment to align strategies and operations with universal principles of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption. Read about PSI’s commitment to the UN Global Compact here.
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From ministries of health to regulatory bodies and purchasers, we partner with private and public sector players to provide seamless health services to consumers – no matter their entry point to care.
Across 40+ countries, we scale digital solutions that make it easier for people to take ownership of their own health, and health systems to use resources efficiently and increase health impact.
We support health systems in shaping the policy and regulatory environment for self-care interventions and ensuring self-care is included as an essential part of healthcare services.
