In the latest Annual Report, DSW looks back at the organisation’s international programme and advocacy work in 2009.

DSW is Reaching out into the Future

In its programmes in East Africa and Asia, DSW helps young people escape poverty by equipping them with knowledge on how to protect their health. Last year, hundreds of thousands youth have learned from peer educators how to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS and unintended pregnancies. Together with our local partners, we are working towards scaling up our sexual and reproductive health education programmes even further, adapting activities to suit the specific needs of young people.

An example of our new activities in 2009: in Uganda, DSW has modified its “Youth-to-Youth” programme to meet the needs of the young population, and in January 2009 launched the innovative “Young Adolescents Project”. Under this initiative, which is supported by Bayer Schering Pharma, we have been teaching young girls and boys in the 10- to 14-year-old age group about sexual and reproductive health at ten primary schools in the Masindi, Tororo and Wakiso districts. This knowledge, provided at such an early age, prepares them to act responsibly when they do have their first sexual experiences and to avoid dangerous health risks. This project enables us to reach an age-group that conventional sexual education approaches miss.

Advocating for Change

DSW aims to create long-term improvements in policies and funding for sexual and reproductive health and rights in Germany, at the European Union and international level, as well as in African and Asian countries. To this end, we work together with non-governmental organisations, parliamentarians and experts in disparate policy environments around the globe. In Germany for example, DSW together with other NGOs and the highly active DSW’s Parliamentary Advisory Group has achieved that health care in low- and middle-income countries was successfully placed on the new German government’s development policy agenda. In fact, the Government’s coalition agreement lists health care as a main focus of Germany’s development cooperation work for the current term.

Accounting for Aid

DSW’s national and international projects and programmes are funded with money we receive from grant-making foundations, public funding and individual donations. Your donations are put to good use. Our funding flows into projects which are carefully planned and implemented at local level. DSW staff members and external supervisory authorities conduct extensive checks on the use of resources. What’s more, we work almost exclusively with local partners in the project regions. They know the needs of people and the situation in the country better than anyone else.

Download our Annual Report 2009/10 as PDF file (2.5 MB)