AMAL Initiative

Health in Emergencies

The Adolescent Mothers Against All Odds (AMAL) Initiative supports pregnant adolescents and first-time mothers living in crisis-affected areas. It also helps communities understand power and social norms, which are the usual ways people act and treat each other.

Background

The crisis in Syria, which began in 2011, has caused more early marriages and adolescent pregnancies. This increase revealed a serious lack of healthcare information and support for young mothers. The AMAL initiative fills this gap and helps improve the health and wellbeing of adolescent mothers in Syria and other crisis areas.  

Program activity

The AMAL Initiative includes three main components: 

  1. Young mothers’ clubs: A set of eight sessions developed for pregnant adolescents and first-time mothers in crisis-affected Syria to help them improve their knowledge of reproductive health and life skills. 
  1. Engaging healthcare workers: Engaging healthcare workers: We train healthcare workers to understand the unique health needs of adolescents and the problems they face when trying to get medical help. We teach healthcare workers how their own attitudes might affect the care they give to adolescents. Based on CARE’s Social Analysis and Action (SAA), we use activities and discussions to help service providers communicate better, make clinics more welcoming for adolescents, and respect their health choices, including family planning. This training is based on our IMAGINE program. 
  1. Community engagement: This component provides training sessions that encourage community members to think, explore, and take action to support at-risk adolescents (married, pregnant, and first-time mothers) in their homes and communities. The long-term goal is to challenge and change unequal power relations within families and communities. The AMAL initiative adopted these sessions from CARE’s TESFA program. 

Results

Of 182 young mothers’ club participants surveyed after going through AMAL: 

said they had developed high self-esteem

were more confident in their ability to get involved

The importance of AMAL

In crisis situations, emergency responses usually get most of the resources, and the needs of adolescents — especially adolescent mothers — are often overlooked. AMAL fills this gap by inviting adolescents to take part in leadership training and actively engage. It truly responds to their needs.