Alternatives

Young people are responsible and autonomous. They actively contribute to sustainable development, and to the promotion of innovative entrepreneurship, sensitive to gender and equity, and concerned about the protection of the planet.
Les membres de l'association

Historical

Created in 2020 during the period of COVID-19 by young people engaged and convinced of the importance of supporting their peers, especially underserved and vulnerable young people in remote towns and villages. ALTERNATIVES uses the “Human Centered Design” (HCD) approach or commonly referred to as “user-centered design.” This approach consists of creating a framework that integrates a set of practices to understand the users – their needs – their constraints – their behaviors in order to develop a deep empathy, generate several ideas to help solve the problems of a community and shifting paradigm.
Conversation autour d'un thé

Goals

Each of our interventions is based on paradigm shifting techniques, in particular the promotion of the equitable participation of young people, aware of the place of humans in the era of the Anthropocene, in shaping themselves the changes that they, wish to promote communities’ resilience, to propose innovative solutions, to enable their empowerment and to inspire political change for sustainable development concerned with the protection of the planet.
Call us on

+261 34 53 687 39
+261 34 29 671 44

Our programs

All our programs will be aimed at youth development and all actions are non-profit social types.

01

ESPOIR 2.0

The “ESPOIR 2.0” program consists of engaging young female sex workers who wish to become financially independent and resilient through the creation of decent jobs. The program strengthens ALTERNATIVES’ initiatives in the promotion and development of young women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, as well as an alternative to HIV. It integrates training on feminist leadership, SRHR, the creation of sustainable micro-enterprises, the establishment of a “village saving and loans association” to support the implementation of projects at local level.

ESPOIR BOOTCAMP :

The “ESPOIR BOOTCAMP” is a workshop that aims to capitalise the results of interventions through the ESPOIR 2.0 program in eight (8) major hubs for sex working in Madagascar. The project has encouraged the involvement of many partners from the public and private sector and was part of the celebration of the Global Entrepreneurship Week and the 16 days of activism to fight
against Gender Based Violence.

02

Leading Change

The Leading Change program aims to build the capacity of vulnerable girls and boys aged 18-24 to develop policies and programs that respond to the needs and realities of Malagasy youth and adolescent girls. The program provides participants with a platform for the exchange of best practices, interaction and discussion with resource persons, access to resources and contacts that are often inaccessible on the ground, the program is spread over a period of 3 months and provides skills in leadership and personal development, micro-project creation and professional insertion, Sexual and Reproductive Health, fight against stigma and discrimination, digital communication, and advocacy.

03

UPROOT

In partnership with The Pact, ALTERNATIVES was able to score the country performance to advocate for improvement on area with underperformance towards a better laws and policies, health outcomes partnership, and meaningful participation of Adolescents and Youth in leadership and policy forum, the Integration across several networks working around SRHR at national level has also enabled ALTERNATIVES to engage stakeholders in policy advocacy on access to self-testing for young people and the age of consent for access to HIV testing.

04

URBAN YOUTH CORPS

The “URBAN YOUTH CORPS” program reflects to the model of foreign volunteer program where young people from the capital city are given the opportunity to gain professional experience through volunteering. The program aims to optimise the skills and knowledge of young volunteers in the service of the vulnerable population, particularly in solving social problems.

05

ADOVACY LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE (ALI)

The Advocacy Leadership Institute aims first at contributing to improve the capacities of civil society organisations (CSO) to conduct a monitoring of human rights application, and create space for CSOs cooperation in advocacy efforts, in understanding human rights protection mechanism and the development of a “Shadow report” which is a very important tool for all human rights organizations in each country as it is a unique tool through which NGOs can present opinions of civil society on government action and present them to the UN Committees, in this way NGOs “shadow” the State report by providing an analysis and critique of the State report during the universal periodic review. Secondly, the program provides local CSOs with skills and at the same time facilitate advocacy efforts by concluding a partnership framework with local authorities.

Fields of action

ADVOCACY

Improving legal environment by fostering the better participation of adolescents and marginalized youths to every spheres of life.

SRHR

Promoting best practices around FP and life skills and developing knowledge to combat STI and HIV transmission, also understanding sexual binaries and boxes.

LEADERSHIP

Nurturing a culture of social paradigms shifting through personal development for marginalised youth and fighting stigma and discrimination.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Initiating entrepreneurial cultures and effective standard model to enabling business setting-up for marginalized young people.