Abren Mobile App: "Together" for Youth-Friendly SRHR

Written by: Lulit Y. Mengesha [pictured], TaYA Ethiopia for the Seed Grant project from CHOICE

The requirement for CHOICE’s seed grant call-out was simple: the project had to be innovative, inclusive, scalable, and address a gap in our program. I remember brainstorming with my manager on how we could meet these requirements. It didn’t take long for us to develop the idea behind “Abren,” a need-based mobile app that provides inclusive SRHR information.

"Abren" translates to the English word “Together,” reflecting the inclusive SRHR content of the mobile application. The philosophy behind it is that when young people receive SRHR information and exercise our right to information, we want it to be together with young people with disabilities and those from diverse backgrounds. That’s why the Abren app provides SRHR information tailored to various disabilities and is available in English as well as three local languages in Ethiopia.

Among the many things I take pride in about Abren is the process we followed to develop it. I believe it was one of the most completely youth-led and youth-centered projects, involving young people from the very beginning, starting with the proposal writing. To gather input, we conducted a series of interviews and focus group discussions with diverse young people and other experts, all of which were led by young people. The software developers we onboarded were also young people who used the opportunity to build their skills and voice their needs through technology. Moreover, the team spirit and experiences gathered during the process were invaluable.

Although the seed grant implementation process was ultimately successful, it was not without challenges. However, the obstacles we faced and the unforeseen circumstances we encountered taught us valuable management skills, and we learned a lot in the process. We are thankful for the opportunity CHOICE gave us to develop our need-based solution for inclusive SRHR information. We remain excited about the Abren 2.0 project that we are currently working on, which will integrate Artificial Intelligence into a chatbot that provides reliable SRHR information to young people with and without disabilities.

See for yourself! Check out Abren on the App Store or Play Store, and keep an eye out for Abren 2.0! Find out more information about TaYA on their website!