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Advocates for Youth

Advocates for Youth champions efforts to help young people make informed and responsible decisions about their reproductive and sexual health. Advocates believes it can best serve the field by boldly advocating for a more positive and realistic approach to adolescent sexual health. Advocates for Youth envisions a society that views sexuality as normal and healthy and treats young people as a valuable resource. The core values of Rights, Respect, Responsibility® (3Rs) animate this vision:

  • RIGHTS: Youth have rights to accurate and complete sexual health
    information, confidential reproductive and sexual health services, and a
    secure stake in the future.
  • RESPECT: Youth deserve respect. Today, young people are largely
    perceived as part of the problem. Valuing young people means they are
    part of the solution and are included in developing programs and policies
    that affect their well-being.
  • RESPONSIBILITY: Society has the responsibility to provide young
    people with the tools they need to safeguard their sexual health, and
    young people have the responsibility to protect themselves from too-
    early childbearing and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including
    HIV.

Advocates for Youth works in partnership with other nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) to assist in building their capacity to create and sustain innovative adolescent reproductive and sexual health programs and policies.
Advocates for Youth works with local NGOs in Bolivia,Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Nigeria, Peru and South Africa, and provides ad hoc technical assistance to youth-serving organizations around the world.

Advocates assists young people to expand their skills and abilities as leaders in HIV/AIDS prevention interventions and to network with youth from other countries, as exemplified in the YouthLIFE (Youth Leadership in Fighting the Epidemic) program, and youth leadership and participation in UN World Summits. AmbienteJoven.org is a Spanish- language site for young men who have sex with men (YMSM), and gay,
lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning (GLBTQ) youth. It provides sexual health information, features written by youth, online peer advisors, and links to GLBTQ groups and services.