According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), despite youths constituting over one-third of Zambia’s 17.8 million population and being an essential part of Zambia’s economic progress, they instead continue to face socioeconomic challenges, such as limited access to health services and vocational skills (UNESCO, 2023).

The USAID-funded Controlling HIV Epidemic for Key and Underserved Populations (CHEKUP )I through its Determined, Resilient, Empowered AIDS-free, Mentored and Schooled (DREAMS) programme, implemented by CIDRZ in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, sees access to health services such as sexual and reproductive health rights among adolescents and young people as key to a healthy lifestyle. The DREAMS programme has set up several safe adolescent health spaces at government health facilities where adolescents can access youth-friendly services and freely discuss health-related issues with their peers. 

During a recently held Lusaka province Adolescent Health Indaba themed “Closing the tap of new HIV infections through meaningful youth engagement, leadership, and innovation.” One beneficiary of the DREAMS programme, Axccellia Sibanda, lauded and appreciated the support adolescents and young people were receiving from programmes like DREAMS, urging her peers to take advantage of such DREAMS health opportunities that would help close the tap of new HIV infections and thereby, in turn, help youths contribute positively to economic development. 

“I am a living testimony of an adolescent girl who has been empowered by interventions like DREAMS with services that support adolescent sexual reproductive health and rights as we transition into adulthood,” she attested.

The DREAMS programme deals with health issues and enables young people with different skills to realize their full potential to actively participate in the country’s social, economic and political developments.