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AMAL Initiative

Health in Emergencies

The Adolescent Mothers Against All Odds (AMAL) Initiative was designed to meet the needs of pregnant adolescents and first-time mothers in areas affected by crisis, while simultaneously addressing the communities’ understandings of power, and social norms.

Background

The crisis in Syria has led to an increase in early marriage and adolescent pregnancy, which has highlighted a critical gap in pregnant adolescents’ access to reproductive health information and services. The AMAL initiative was designed to fill this gap, improving the reproductive health and wellbeing of adolescent mothers in Syria and other humanitarian settings.

Intervention

The AMAL Initiative includes three main components:

  1. Young mothers’ clubs: A set of eight sessions developed for pregnant adolescents and first-time mothers in crisis-affected Syria to improve their knowledge of reproductive health and life skills.
  2. Engaging healthcare providers: Recognizing the unique needs of adolescents and the specific barriers they face in seeking services at health facilities, this component provides interactive training for health service providers to transform their attitudes toward providing reproductive health services, including family planning, to adolescents. These sessions include participatory exercises based on CARE’s Social Analysis and Action (SAA) approach that promote communication skills, adolescent-friendly health services, and family planning counseling with a focus on the individual’s rights. These sessions were adapted from CARE’s IMAGINE program.
  3. Community engagement: This component offers training sessions for community members that use reflection, exploration, and action to rally community and household support for vulnerable adolescents (married, pregnant, and first-time mothers), with a long-term goal of challenging and transforming unequal power dynamics. These sessions were adapted from CARE’s TESFA program.

Program achievements

Of 182 young mothers’ club participants who were surveyed after going through AMAL:

said they had high self-esteem

said they had high self-esteem

were more confident in their ability to participate

were more confident in their ability to participate

The importance of AMAL

In crisis settings, emergency response efforts typically get the most resources, and the needs of adolescents – specifically adolescent mothers – fall through the cracks. AMAL not only fills this gap but also directly invites adolescents to participate and engage in leadership training. It is truly responsive.

Resources

Adolescent Mothers Against All Odds (AMAL)​ – Locally Developed, Globally Scaled​

The AMAL Initiative, locally developed and globally scaled, addresses the SRH needs of pregnant adolescents and first-time mothers in different crisis-hit countries. Launched in March 2020, it involves activities like the Young Mothers' Club to bridge the gap in SRH services and challenge social norms affecting women and girls, aiming to contribute to global discussions on adolescent responsive SRH and GBV programming.

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AMAL Initiative Flipbook (English)

Visual aids designed to complement the toolkit.

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AMAL Initiative Flipbook (Arabic)

Visual aids designed to complement the toolkit.

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