The new youth activity will support Goal Area 3 of the DRPF, Promotion and Prevention. It will innovatively support the Dominican government and civil society to strengthen and/or develop systems to ensure youths health, safety, and success in school, work, family, and the community. The intervention will focus specifically on youth aged 10-17 years old living in the corridor between Santo Domingo and Puerto Plata, where 70% of the population and a majority of at-risk youth live. Targeting school drop-outs, youth engaged in delinquent activities, and those living in difficult family situations, youth participants will be selected based on their need for and potential for responding to interventions such as school-reintegration; life-skills and vocational training; STI and HIV/AIDS prevention and screening services; prevention of unwanted pregnancies and income-generating activities. This activity will leverage Caribbean Basin Security Initiative funds at a ratio of 4:1. The project will commit to sustainability, scale-up, and partner country leadership of development efforts by promoting collaborative partnerships among government entities, civil society, youth, the private sector and donors. The project will develop a robust monitoring and evaluation plan from its beginning in order to measure the projects impact.

The project is expected to roll out an innovative model for providing a social safety net for at-risk youth. The strategies chosen will combine evidence-based interventions and new models. The performance of the model and the project will be assessed through a robust evaluation that will include baseline data and, potentially, a control group. The project leverages multiple funding sources, including the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative in order to achieve a multi-sectoral impact.

Overview

Over the life of the project, the implementing partner aims to reach 47,000 youth aged 10-17. The 2007 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) revealed high levels of early sexual debut (15% of young women and 23.5% of young men reported sexual initiation before age 15) and high levels of teen pregnancy (20.6 percent of teens (15-19) were either pregnant or already mothers). These high rates indicate reaching boys and girls aged 10-17 with messages about delay of sexual debut and secondary abstinence is critical to reducing their risk of HIV infection. In addition youth must also receive messages about partner reduction (The 2007 DHS revealed that 8 % of young women and 39% of young men reported multiple sexual partners in the previous year). To transmit these messages, the implementing partner will likely implement existing interventions already developed and adapted for the Dominican Context such as Peace Corps Escojo Mi Vida, Grassroots Soccer, or the Life Skills Program developed under the previous USAID-funded Strengthening HIV/AIDS Services Project implemented by FHI 360. The prime implementing partner will be responsible for ensuring the standardization of the intervention across current and future sub-partners and describing the minimum package (mix and dose) as part of the project level Performance Monitoring Plan (PMP). USAID and the prime partner will share responsibility for ensuring adherence to the minimum package.

Two drivers of the epidemic among youth are Gender-Based Violence and Economic Opportunity. According to the 2007 DHS, 9.7% of women aged 15 49 experienced physical violence and 10.1% experienced sexual violence in 2007. Of those who had experienced sexual violence, 38.5% experienced their first aggression before the age of 20, with 6.5% of respondents stating they were younger than 10 years old when they first experienced sexual violence. This indicates that young people are not necessarily choosing to engage in sex, but are rather forced to engage in sex. The comprehensive nature of this project will work to strengthen the social safety net and reduce this vulnerability. Economic opportunity is an additional driver of HIV, with high rates of transactional sex being reported anecdotally (Additional evidence should result from the proposed PLACE study). Because this project has such a strong focus on economic opportunities for these at-risk youth, through referrals to vocational training and employment opportunities (with funding from other sources), this vulnerability should also be mitigated. In addition to the economic opportunity referrals the project will promote strong and effective linkages to clinical HIV and family planning services.

RTI, a sub-partner under the implementing mechanism will develop a robust information system, which tracks youth through their unique profiles. The profile tracks the number of interventions and trainings received and will also serve as a professional networking site to connect to potential employers and a resource page to direct youth to health services including HIV testing. In addition to the prevention indicators reported to Washington to which the program directly contributes, the project will also track indicators related to HIV testing and counseling and Gender-Based Violence to ensure that the implementing mechanism is appropriately targeting their interventions.

Over the life of the project, the implementing partner aims to reach 100,000 youth (47,000 youth aged 10-17 and 53,000 youth aged 18-25). The DHS revealed that only 34% of young women (15-24) reported condom use at their previous sexual encounter compared to 62% of young men. This is despite young women demonstrating a more comprehensive knowledge of HIV compared to their male peers (40.8% among females vs. 33.7% among males); therefore a stronger focus on behavior change communication and promotion of correct and consistent condom use is fundamental for young people.

To transmit these messages, the implementing partner will likely implement existing interventions already developed and adapted for the Dominican Context such as Peace Corps Escojo Mi Vida, Grassroots Soccer, or the methodologies developed by the Centro de Orientation e Investigación Integral (COIN) to target sex workers as part of the Dominican 100% Condom Campaign. The prime implementing partner will be responsible for ensuring the standardization of the intervention across current and future sub-partners and describing the minimum package (mix and dose) as part of the project level Performance Monitoring Plan (PMP). USAID and the prime partner will share responsibility for ensuring adherence to the minimum package.

Two drivers of the epidemic among youth are Gender-Based Violence and Economic Opportunity. According to the 2007 DHS, 9.7% of women aged 15 49 experienced physical violence and 10.1% experienced sexual violence in 2007. Of those who had experienced sexual violence, 38.5% experienced their first aggression before the age of 20. The comprehensive nature of this project will work to strengthen the social safety net and reduce this vulnerability. Economic opportunity is an additional driver of HIV; with anecdotal evidence indicating high rates of transactional and commercial sex among these age groups (Additional evidence should result from the proposed PLACE study). Previous size estimates indicate that there are approximately 100,000 sex workers in the Dominican Republic and site visits confirm that many of these girls are young (including girls younger than 18 which is illegal). This project provides economic alternatives for these young women (and in some cases men), through referrals to vocational training and employment opportunities (with funding from other sources). In addition to the economic opportunity referrals the project will promote strong and effective linkages to clinical HIV and family planning services.

RTI, a sub-partner under the implementing mechanism will develop a robust information system, which tracks youth through their unique profiles. The profile tracks the number of interventions and trainings received and will also serve as a professional networking site to connect to potential employers and a resource page to direct youth to health services including HIV testing. In addition to the prevention indicators reported to Washington to which the program directly contributes, the project will also track indicators related to HIV testing and counseling and Gender-Based Violence to ensure that the implementing mechanism is appropriately targeting their interventions.