Adi Karmayogi Fellow

UNFPA is the lead UN agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled. UNFPA’s strategic plan, focuses on three transformative results: to end preventable maternal deaths; end unmet need for family planning; and end gender-based violence and harmful practices. UNFPA has been operating in India since 1974.

UNFPA works in partnership with tribal departments at both national and state levels to advance the health, rights, and wellbeing of tribal populations, with a strong focus on adolescents, women, and youth. UNFPA supports life skills education, sexual and reproductive health awareness, and gender equality initiatives among tribal youth through community-based interventions and school programs.

UNFPA assists Department of Health and Family Welfare in improving access to quality maternal health, family planning, and reproductive health services in tribal and remote regions including technical assistance in generating disaggregated data and conducting studies to inform inclusive planning and policy-making for tribal populations.

In India, UNFPA works closely with the State Tribal Welfare Departments in Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan to mainstream adolescent development, support district-level planning, and improve service delivery in tribal-dominated districts/blocks.

As a part of the ongoing collaboration, UNFPA proposes to support the Aadi Karmayogi initiative of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India by focusing on the supporting the capacity-building of frontline workers and creating awareness amongst the tribal communities around government programmes/schemes. Tribal Youth Advocates will be deployed from local tribal communities in targeted blocks and villages. These youth volunteers will play a crucial role in raising awareness on govt schemes and SRH, linking communities to government schemes, and facilitating effective last-mile delivery of services.

The targeted states are Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and the deployment of UNVs will be in the UNFPA priority districts or RKSK Districts where CSO Partners are available to facilitate implementation of program in both the states.

Madhya Pradesh: The UN Volunteers will be placed at the block level with the block level tribal welfare officers in priority districts as well as RKSK Districts with local CSO partner. The District Facilitator and NGO District Coordinator will offer mentoring un UNFPA Priority district and RKSK Districts respectively.

Under the direct supervision of UNFPA State Head, Madhya Pradesh, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:
• Provide coordination support to the capacity building initiatives of the State Government at district/block and village level; and
• Support village level trained government providers to develop costed village vision document using consultative process.
• Organise village level camps for creating awareness and uptake of various govern-ment programmes and schemes by tribal populations under the India’ social protection framework.
• Promote UNFPA’s ‘Just Ask Chatbot’ amongst the young people from tribal communities to access information on sexual and reproductive health and rights.