CSR: Transforming adolescent lives in India

India has 243 million adolescents by UNICEF’s count, but the country performed dismally on adolescent girls’ health, safety and education. A TrustLaw poll ranked India as the fourth most dangerous country in the world for women!

Another UNICEF report indicated that 56% of adolescent girls in the 15-19 age group are anaemic while almost 20% of women aged 20–24 were first married by age 15. Finally, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights reports that nearly 40% of girls aged 15-18 don’t go to school.

The approach

With the vision to transform adolescent lives in India, the 10to19 Dasra Adolescents Collaborative (DAC) was launched with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2017.

The 10to19 Collaborative model unifies stakeholders across the sector—including funders, nonprofits, technical experts and the government—to drive collaborative action and ensure that adolescents are educated, healthy and empowered to make positive life choices. DAC’s long-term priorities are to create an evidence-based model of adolescent programming and centre adolescents in the national health and development agenda to strengthen the sector and influence government policy.

With support from Dasra, DAC will administer a US $50 million outcome-led collaborative funding model that supports its nonprofit partners’ work in Jharkhand. DAC also strengthens the ecosystem by fostering a CoP that brings together more than 60 adolescent-focused organizations to share knowledge, provide support and promote collective action to engage with the government for effective programme and policy implementation.

What has been achieved so far

Over the past year, DAC kick-started implementation in 31 blocks across 6 districts in Jharkhand and completed a baseline evaluation with nearly 16,000 adolescents across 23 districts in Jharkhand, says the India Philanthropy Report 2019 by Bain & Company.

DAC also polled more than 10,000 adolescents across 7 states in India, in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, to evaluate their need for, awareness of and access to adolescent-focused health services. It channelled INR 6 crore to its four implementing nonprofit partners for programmes in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Assam.

What sets it apart

Its multi-stakeholder approach brings partners into a shared vision with a defined shared outcomes framework and a clear link to broader SDGs relating to health and well-being, equitable education and gender equality.

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