How to Talk About Sex to Teens in Zambia
A design firm created health centers in disguise to teach teen girls about birth control.
“Teen connectors” facilitate conversations with adolescent girls.
Courtesy IDEOThis article is for subscribers only.
Sandwiched between a bakery and a grocery store in a bustling neighborhood of Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, the Diva Centre is nothing fancy: a sparse room with some chairs and tables cluttered with magazines and bottles of nail polish. With teenage girls and young women coming and going, it could easily be mistaken for a nail salon.
The Diva Centre is actually a health clinic in disguise—the product of a collaboration between Marie Stopes International, a London-based family-planning organization, and Ideo.org, a nonprofit that specializes in applying design thinking to social problems.