On Saturday 30th of April 2022 The United Nations Association of Tanzania joined hands with the Youth of United Nations Association of Tanzania for a thrilling youth symposium with the theme YOUTH ROLES IN SEXUAL REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND ENDING INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE a pre-event towards Tanzania International Model United Nations (TIMUN 2022) at the National Museum, Posta. The symposium was attended by 584 young people from Secondary schools, Universities and Youth-led organizations.

The symposium included presentations from guest speakers and a panel discussion. The presentations were from Tausi Hassan, Program analyst – youth development at UNFPA Tanzania and Catherine Fidelis, Program assistant – Education for health and well-being at UNESCO Tanzania. Aside from that, there was a panel discussion which was moderated by Ms. Frida Muslimu, Youth Advisory Panel (YAP) member at UNFPA Tanzania that included panelists with rich experience in different components of sexual reproductive health and rights. They were Salha Azizi- Founder of Binti Salha Foundation and SRHR consultant, Shedrack Msuya- Founder Salama Foundation and Content Developer at Infolife Tanzania, Ummilkher Yassin- President TIMUN 2021 and SRHR Advocate, Catherine Madebe- Program Lead Mulika Tanzania and Lucas Kifyasi- Head of Programs UNA Tanzania.

In her presentation Tausi Hassani gave a situational analysis on youth and adolescents sexual health in the country. It showcased important statistics such as teenage pregnancy (age 15-19) is at 27% (8% in ZNZ), HIV prevalence among youth (age 15-24) is at 1.4% as stipulated by the 2018 NBS projections from the 2012 national census. She went on to put greater emphasis on how accurate SRHR information to adolescents and youth would alleviate the situation. She said, “Education and proper information of sexual reproductive health should be accepted by the society and made accessible to youth”. Furthermore she encouraged youth to seek SRHR education.

The panelists on their discussions deep dived on the following;

• Intimate partner violence
• Age appropriate comprehensive sexuality education
• Friendly sexual reproductive health services to youth
• National and International commitments that Tanzania abides with on sexual reproductive health and rights
• Youth participation on policy formulation processes in order to stimulate youth desired change.