EVA Youth Advocate Group Takes Youth-Led SRHR Advocacy Experiences to Women Deliver Global Conference

The Women Deliver Global Conference took place at the Walter E. Convention Center, Washington D.C from 6^th of June to 9th of June, 2010. The event attracted over 3000 people to address the issues that affect girls and women, particularly in the area of maternal health. The theme for the conference was “Investing in Women; It Pays”.

The theme of the event was on “Delivering Solutions for Girls and Women”. The ‘Millennium Development Goal 5 that was conceived 10 years ago has been the tool in achieving that, but so far, successes have been minimal as shown in statistics of maternal mortality and morbidity. Particularly in Nigeria, even though so many programs are being implemented, the health of girls and women remains an area where more effort is needed.

EVA Youth Advocates Group (YAG) member, Miss Kikelomo Taiwo attended the conference with support from Advocates for Youth.  She was amongst the 100 young leaders that participated in the Youth Pre-Conference.  Based on the YAG experiences and successes with in-country advocacy on sexual and reproductive health, she presented a paper titled ­'Youth Leadership; Involving Young People in Programming and Policy Advocacy'.  In addition to the paper presentation, she also made oral presentation at the “Speaker’s Corner”, which was documented in this video by the Population Institute.  Kike was also opportune to meet and interact with Nigerian delegates including the Former Nigerian Minister of Health, Chairperson Senate Committee on Health, Senior Special Advisor to the President on MDG and the Permanent Secretary for the Nigerian Ministry of Health.  The YAG intends on following up on the linkages and contacts made during the conference to boost and strengthen the group’s in-country advocacy efforts on young people’s sexual and reproductive health issues.

“One of the things I learnt from the conference, which was not presented in any paper or as part of any speech, was the importance of youth leadership.  I learnt that leadership is beyond holding position but its more about identifying challenges and taking responsibility. I also have a better understanding of the relationship between women’s health and development issues and development of communities and countries, which I intend on integrating into our youth SRHR advocacy work”

-Kikelomo

Beyond the conference, her visit to the United States also enabled her to work with other youth and adult advocates in conducting lobbying visits to the United States Congress to increase support for international maternal health issues (MDG5).