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Family Planning In Rural Ethiopia

Rewriting the narrative on family planning choices aimed at young adolescent girls and their partners in rural Ethiopia. 

 
Motherhood remains a primary aspiration for many, if not all, of the married adolescent girls engaged through A360’s programming. While A360 helps these girls identify and pursue a broader set of life goals, including the use of contraception that aligns with their fertility preferences, the project also ensured they have the information and agency needed to achieve healthy pregnancies when they choose to become mothers. Critically, A360 maintains continuity of care, enabling these young women to continue making informed decisions about their fertility even after they have had a baby.

During our research phase we outlined objectives designed to support married adolescent girls by giving them and their influencers the knowledge and tools they need to plan for a healthy pregnancy and birth.

We aimed to highlight the importance of antenatal care (ANC) and encourage girls to see it as essential for a healthy pregnancy.

Our goal was to create a supportive system and environment where these girls can confidently make and pursue decisions about their pregnancy and future.

Additionally, we hoped to ensure that they have continuous access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care throughout their pregnancy and postpartum period, helping them achieve their fertility goals and aspirations.




01.
Research, Scoping & Identifying Challenges in rural Ethiopia

We set out to understand the environment,societal context and traditional customs young adolescent couples live in and discovered the challenges and barriers they encountered along their sexual reproductive health & fertility journey.

02.
Designing Solution-oriented Concepts To Address Key Challenges


When it came to designing our first concepts we leaned into placing emphasis on mindset shift, agency & addressing power dynamics. This approach allowed us to begin tackling the root causes of problems within the system and key issues along a couples SRH & FP journey.




03.
Testing Interventions With Users & Iterative Prototyping


The PSI team tested our initial prototypes in three rural Ethiopean communities and on return we collaboratively tweaked, modified and merged our prototypes.

04.
Final Development of Prototypes

We collaboratively tweaked, modified and merged our prototypes. We carefully looked at where our interventions sat along the MNCH and family planning journey of couples ensuring that the different needs at different stages along the track are met. This allowed us to develop in order to develop final prototypes.









We designed assets that focused on counselling and guiding young married couples through their sexual reproductive health journeys & family planning options.


The assets  were centered around preconception care, how to lead a healthy pregnancy focusing on nutritional diet and adhering to ANC attendance and postpartum family planning.


Smart ANC Tracker

Smart ANC Care tracker guides expecting young couples through the pregnancy journey from preconception and delivery to postpartum family planning. It lays out vital information on developmental growth stages of the baby, danger signs during pregnancy and an ANC checklist. It nudges couples to adhere to ANC visits and aims to prompt interactive conversations and joint decision making to ensure a health pregnancy. 


Smart Nutrition

The Smart Nutrition leaflet offers clear recommendations on essential nutrition and supplements for a healthy pregnancy.

Smart Pathways

Smart Pathways offers timely tailored messaging on preconception care, early ANC initiation and post partum family planning, allowing couples agency and to choose different pathways depending on where they are in their fertility journey.
Smart Start Project, Part of A360 Amplify Ethiopia
@ IDEO.org partnering with PSI Ethiopia
Content courtesy of IDEO.org
Role: Human Centered Design  |  Visual Design  | Co-leading the Project  |