Connecting for my health

SDG 3: Good Health and Well-BeingSDG 5: Gender equality
  • Year: 2013
  • Award: WSA Young Innovators
  • Category: Young Innovators
  • Producer: Ms. María Luisa Méndez
  • Country: Guatemala
  • URL: http://puertajoven.org/girls/

Connecting for my health is an SMS system that aims to empower young women and girl adolescents in rural areas of Guatemala with information regarding the prevention of child and teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease and HIV. Through messages, the girls receive free weekly information for seven months but can also ask educators directly about how to take care of themselves. The platform targets youth in thirteen rural municipalities using educational games and mobile phones to transmit knowledge and inspire users to become disseminators who will reach even more girls. Access to information on contraception has increased among adolescents in Guatemala, but the failure to use family planning or STI prevention methods, still puts many young women at risk.

Connecting for my health is an initiative developed between 2011-2012, driven by the Guatemala Association Paz Jóven through organized groups of teenagers and young people and supported by the United Nations Fund for Children-UNICEF in Guatemala.