Community led SBCC Using Gatekeepers to catalyze contraceptive use by Women and Girls in underserved pastoralist communities Before I start the presentation I would like to say that it is a snapshot of the social change work we are doing, there is obviously a great deal of work that has been done by all partners and Exp beyond the work in this presentation.

Project Consortium Lead Partner

Key Objective Increased family planning uptake and use amongst rural Women of reproductive age and adolescent Girls through mainly the private sector

Background Project covers 21 counties in Kenya – 7 low prevalence counties were identified for social change. Exp covers, Turkana, West Pokot, Samburu, Kajiado & Narok Beliefs and values of Pastoralist communities are deeply rooted. These cultural values are closely guarded Gender bias is pronounced Leadership sets and maintains social norms These communities are geographic with limited external influence.

Background…cont’d Social change is built through a top-down advocacy approach. Building support of key opinion leaders and influencers Using these influencers to cascade change to gatekeepers Gatekeepers then support change which moves social norms to create an enabled environment empowering Woman and Girls

Social change objectives To create an environment where family planning can be discussed and adopted openly across demographic segments To improve uptake of modern family planning methods among rural women and adolescent girls. To strengthen beneficiary voice through community empowerment

Exp Indicators Number of men, traditional and religious leaders reached and the percentage of those that pledge support for FP Percentage of women and adolescents who attend an FP forum and then become a FP user

Tools & Design

Theory of Change

Sixth SenseTM Intervention

Design & Implementation process Evidence building Top down advocacy Gatekeeper engagement Community engagement Demand creation Measurement at all stages

Pre-exposure survey Building evidence of need of the target, namely Women and adolescent Girls Exp identified 4 key actions Women wanted their husbands and partners to do to support them Allow them to use modern FP methods Pay for FP methods used by their partners Allow them to leave home for FP services Discuss FP with their peers (other men) These 4 actions were translated into the pledges the Men and natural leaders as Gatekeepers promised to do

Rationale: Opinion Leader engagement Leadership in communities, especially rural, are the originators of social norms Whether reinforcing old cultural ‘truths’ or evolving new ways of doing things. Exp’s ‘top down’ advocacy approach is designed to build ownership of the intervention OL pledges is the next step in ‘ownership’, leaders are taking on the role of changing their community Exp trained OL’s to host forums

Gatekeeper engagement Exp identified mainly Men as the key ‘Gatekeepers’ of the desired behaviour. Using OL’s to ‘champion’ new norms, cascading them to Men, the Men would then become the custodians of the new behaviour OL’s conducted cascade forums with men Pledges by men translated into action and an improved environment

Community engagement The enabled environment empowered Women and Girls Exp simultaneously started demand creation amongst Women and Girls resulting in increased levels of adoption of modern FP methods

M&E/Measurement Data obtained from: Activity participation registers Pledge certificates and pledge registers Periodic post exposure surveys Accountability managed by Palladium

Results 9,206 reached in 2015; 8,325 made pledges (90% pledge rate). 15,332 pledges made in 2016 out of 15,809 reach (96% pledge rate) 65% FP uptake by women reached through community forums 7,157 pledges achieved from 9,151 in 2017 (78% Pledge rate)

Richard Burns & Gordon Achola Thank you Richard Burns & Gordon Achola richard.burns@expsocialmarketing.com gordon.achola@expagency.co.ke www.expsocialmarketing.com