Challenge
In Kenya, 8,000 women and 40,000 newborns die before, during or after pregnancy every year. Combined with an overall teen pregnancy rate of 18% – with some regions of the country reporting as high as 40% — Kenya is in a reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health crisis.

Solution
By building the capacity of citizens, including adolescents and youth, to understand their health rights, then facilitating meaningful engagement with the government, we can ensure that the most important challenges and solutions are identified and that quality reproductive, maternal newborn and adolescent health services and policies are in place.

Current Campaigns
WRA Kenya is currently involved in several campaigns to raise awareness and drive action for reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (RMNCAH).

The Our Voices Project is working to ensure that adolescents, young women and girls can effectively engage with duty bearers around reproductive, maternal and adolescent health issues. By collecting and amplifying young people’s voices through youth accountability teams, we have increased engagement between adolescents and county government and RMNCAH service providers to address their needs.

The Whatever Your Political Colors campaign made a clarion call to politicians seeking various elective posts to prioritize mothers, newborns and adolescents in their agenda and be ready to be held accountable once elected. Citizens were also encouraged to scrutinize those running and only vote for leaders who committed to prioritize mothers, newborns and adolescents’ health. For more information, here are some interviews.

Warembo na SDGs at the Global Goals World Cup. WRA Kenya was part of the Global Goals Women’s World Cup in Nairobi, with the campaign targeted on Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG 3) – good health for all. Various educative forums for adolescents and youth, with a focus on sexual health and rights, were undertaken through women-only football clubs. Preparatory forums presented a unique opportunity to unify youth to hold their local leaders to account on promises made and policies in place for RMNCAH. These also served as a platform to discuss the SDGs more broadly and other key commitments that Kenya has made around RMNCAH.

Our Impact

• Secured maternal and newborn health as part of the media agenda in the country.
• Partnered with key youth networks, building their capacity to engage around their key reproductive health concerns.
• Trained a network of senior and vibrant media staff that resulted in significantly improved reporting and a pool of WRA experts who are called upon anytime to talk about RMNCAH rights and entitlements for citizens.
• Conducted a political economy analysis on citizen rights and entitlements awareness, which revealed key issues and recommendations for improved RMNCAH.
• Undertook a sensitization convoy from Nairobi to Kisumu educating citizens on their rights and how their actions can help ensure that no woman dies while giving life.
• Engaged and trained a pool of champions who have played key roles in supporting the WRA Kenya agenda.