The Cascade Model

There is a special challenge in providing sexual and reproductive health advice and counselling to the most vulnerable and under-served groups of young people, especially when they live in remote rural areas and don’t attend school.

Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) successfully used what’s called a 'cascade model' to help kick start a series of youth groups aimed at reaching these marginalized young people.

Reproductive Health Uganda's cascade model worked on many levels to engage the support of community leaders, parents and peer educators to ‘seed’ new youth groups throughout a region.

RHU's project’s team leaders began by holding workshops for community elders, parents and youth leaders in target areas to gain the trust and support of community leaders.

To help create a supportive environment within the school setting, the project team then asked head teachers to act as ‘club patrons’.

Meanwhile peer educators were recruited to plan after-school activities which also included those young people who didn’t attend any school.

Having won community support, the project team of peer educators set about organizing ‘model’ youth clubs which provided youth-friendly, accessible information on sexual health and in the form of ‘edu-tainment’: such as puppetry, music and drama in local dialects.

Young people in full time work were not neglected, activities specifically for them were held at weekends or late evenings.

Married and unmarried young people, and young parents, were also encouraged to attend.

The success of this approach was demonstrated by the number of requests from parents and youth leaders for clubs to be extended to their areas.