Box 4 describes an innovative example. Messages can also be delivered via the mass media and entertainment, such as popular songs, soap operas, videos, television spots, billboards, sporting events, and theater performances. Combining entertainment with education has proven appealing and successful in reaching youth in many settings. In addition, telephone hotlines and radio call-in shows give youth an opportunity to discuss their concerns anonymously with trained counselors. Pharmacies and social marketing programs are also beginning to target young adults as consumers of health products, especially condoms.
Young people have a variety of special needs that differ from one setting to another.
A key aspect of the design of youth programs is the involvement of young people in helping to determine the program approaches and components that best respond to their concerns. In doing so, young people gain new skills and self-confidence as they make decisions that impact their future and that of future generations. Ideally, countries will develop a comprehensive, multifaceted strategy for reaching youth. Providing young people with reproductive health information, counseling, and services can be both challenging and controversial, because of cultural sensitivities about adolescent sexuality. The program's decentralized, community-based approach, which uses youth promoters for outreach activities, is flexible and adaptable to local circumstances.