The UNFPA Mental Health and ASRHR HackLab 2023 for African Innovator

Apply now for the UNFPA Mental Health and ASRHR HackLab 2023 for African Innovators on Truesport your best worldwide scholarship on the internet. Due to this interlinkage, the mental health of adolescents and young people is closely connected to the accomplishment of UNFPA’s three Transformative Results (TRs) by 2030, these being (a) ending preventable maternal deaths, (b) ending the unmet need for family planning, and (c) ending gender-based violence and harmful practices, including child marriage and female genital mutilation. It is in light of this that UNFPA in partnership with Youth Connekt Africa (YCA) implemented by AfriLabs is organizing the Mental Health and ASRHR HackLab, which will study innovation as an approach to accelerating efforts towards achieving the three TRs and assure protection and fulfillment of adolescents and young people’s rights. The HackLab targets young people who have prospective innovative solutions that when taken to scale can make impactful changes on the mental health and ASRHR of young people in the region.

The HackLab will also recognize intermediaries including accelerators within UNFPA Country Offices (COs), incubators, investors, marketers, etc who can assist young innovators to thrive and become leaders of societal change. The HackLab will also recognize innovators and connect them with technical support through UNFPA COs to assist them with aligning with UNFPA’s mandate to develop innovative solutions in addressing issues related to mental health and ASRHR. This will help to raise awareness of the bi-directional interlinkages between mental health and ASRHR and help mitigate the consequences of both negative mental health and ASRHR outcomes in adolescents and young people.

This HackLab will be a platform for UNFPA to enable opportunities for young people to innovate and create solutions on SRHR while creating jobs for youth. The opportunity areas include:

1. Ideas and solutions aiming at improving the mental health of pregnant adolescent girls and young women and/or young mothers and young parents.
2. Ideas and solutions aiming at addressing the interlinkages between HIV and the mental health of adolescents and young people.
3. Ideas and solutions focusing on the mental health of adolescents and young people who are GBV survivors.
4. Ideas and solutions for preventing mental health issues and improving the mental well-being of adolescents and young people of the LGBTIQ+ community
5. Ideas and solutions on drug and substance abuse and its interlinkages to mental health and ASRHR.

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ELIGIBILITY CONDITIONS FOR THE UNFPA MENTAL HEALTH AND ASRHR HACKLAB 2023

To participate in the Hacklab, the selected innovation solution must meet the following criteria:

• Ideas must be new, innovative and respond to any of the opportunity areas identified above.
• Be based in a UNFPA SYP Programme country (Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe)
• Demonstrate that the idea or solution is novel in the SYP programme country
• Demonstrate capacity with a clear plan for incubating the idea or solution to scale
• The innovator must be 35 years or younger (African Union definition for youth). Women and girls and people with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply
• Innovations can be submitted by individuals or teams. Innovation teams cannot be represented by more than 3 members
• Align with the UNFPAs transformative results and/or core mandate
• Align with the UN principles of innovation;
• Be scalable and commercially viable solutions. Solutions that are adaptable to other contexts with little financial injections required
• Have a demonstrable capacity to empower women and youth
• Teams must be willing to adjust their idea or solution if advised by their Country Office facilitating their technical capacity building
• Willingness to showcase their idea or solutions through communication platforms to be determined by UNFPA.

AWARD

• Each of the two emerging solutions will benefit from a seed fund investment of USD$15,000.
• Another $5,000 in-kind investment readiness business support will be provided to each winning solution by the identified business incubation hub.
• The acceleration support provided by Afrilabs will include business support services – exposure to investment opportunities, business coaching, customer acquisition, brand positioning and awareness, financial management, team building, product development, and augmentation, etc.

SCHEDULEs

1. Call for applications closes: 17 August
2. Longlisting and shortlisting of submitted innovations: August/September
3. Technical capacity building for innovators: Mid-September
4. Final pitch event at YCA summit: October
5. Investments readiness preparation for winning innovations: October-December

Application Deadline: 17 August 2023

The UNFPA Mental Health and ASRHR HackLab 2023 for African Innovators