The Passages Project is a seven-year (2015-2022), USAID-funded implementation research project that aims to address the root challenges of family planning and reproductive health – such as gender-based violence, child marriage, and unintended pregnancy – by transforming social norms.

By strengthening normative environments that support reproductive health and well-being, especially among young people at life course transition points, including very young adolescents, newly married youth, and first-time parents, the Passages Project capitalizes on formative periods  of transition to test, study, and scale up a suite of interventions. These evidence-based interventions aim to enable young people to use voluntary family planning and achieve healthy timing and spacing of first and subsequent pregnancies. The Passages Project also studies interventions that promote collective change through media, advocacy, and community campaigns and mobilization, as well as discussions within social networks and among community leaders.

The Passages Project brings together experts from the Center on Gender Equity and Health at UC San Diego, the Institute for Reproductive Health at Georgetown University, FHI 360, Johns Hopkins Global Early Adolescent Study, Population Services International, Save the Children, and Tearfund to achieve sustained progress in Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Rwanda, Mali,  Niger, and Senegal, with technical assistance in more countries.

Relevant Materials: 

Passages Project Brief

Social Norms Lexicon

Related Projects:

Passages Project page at Institute for Reproductive Health: http://irh.org/projects/passages/

Global Learning Collaborative to Advance Normative Change: https://www.alignplatform.org/learning-collaborative

Expanding the Learning Collaborative to Advance Social Norms in East Africa

Advancing Social Norms Practice in Nigeria

Growing Up GREAT!: The Way Forward / « Bien Grandir : La Voie à Suivre! »

Support the scale up of REAL Fathers Initiative in Northern Uganda and Karamoja Region

Global

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