From Margins to Power: Scaling Girl-Centered Care Systems That Work
This event spotlights justice-driven, holistic, girl-centered support models that integrate access to modern contraception, HIV and abortion care services, and trauma-informed support for survivors of sexual violence, strengthening girls’ resilience, agency, and pathways to long-term opportunity.
Across sub-Saharan Africa, millions of adolescent girls face overlapping barriers to health, education, safety, and economic opportunity. Many are out of school, married early, exposed to sexual violence, or navigating unmet sexual and reproductive health and trauma-related wellbeing needs. These realities are interconnected—yet most responses are not.
Fragmented funding, siloed policies, and disconnected services continue to fail girls by addressing symptoms instead of systems. To create lasting change, we must move beyond siloed interventions toward integrated, feminist, and girl-centered care systems that reflect the complexity of girls’ lives and respond to their realities.
This session convenes funders, practitioners, feminist leaders, and advocates to take in the lived experiences of several girls in various countries through multi-media stories, and to explore intersectional approaches that integrate sexual and reproductive health and rights, survivor-centered care, and empowerment.
Anchored in nexus and ecosystems thinking, the interactive discussion will examine how cross-sector collaboration and partnerships can scale solutions to make lasting change, for girls. By centering adolescent girls as leaders, designers, and decision-makers, the session reframes investment in girls as a pathway to justice, equity, and resilience—where girls have the power to shape their own futures.
Biographies:
Tiko strengthens the resilience of girls across Africa by protecting them from the “Triple Threat”- unintended pregnancy, HIV, and sexual violence by removing barriers to care -stigma, low awareness, cost, and system fragmentation. We build and strengthen local ecosystems connecting girls to integrated health services at no cost through community-driven models of care powered by a technology platform. By removing barriers and acting as their companion, Tiko supports girls so they can take charge of their health and futures.
Serah is Tiko’s Co-Chief Executive Officer. She is responsible for delivering impact across Tiko’s 7 geographies Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Zambia and Nigeria through overseeing country operations, monitoring evaluation research and learning, an active donor portfolio, together with marketing/demand generation. A seasoned international leader in public health and PRINCE2 Practitioner with a consistent record of accomplishment in planning and executing ambitious initiatives in the African region.
Tiko: Linkedin & www.tiko.org
Ipas works with partners around the world to advance reproductive justice by expanding access to abortion and contraception. Ipas’s holistic, locally led approach seeks to make systems-level change. With partners, we strengthen existing public health, legal and social systems so that safe abortion and contraception are integrated, sustainable parts of health care, and reproductive rights are a reality.
Dr. Anu Kumar is the President and CEO of Ipas, an international reproductive justice organization. She provides strategic leadership for staff in Asia, Africa, and the Americas—all guided by Ipas’s commitment to working for a world where everyone can determine their own future. She is internationally recognized as an advocate for women’s rights and a thought leader in global health.
Dr. Jean-Claude Mulunda leads Ipas’s work in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is an experienced trainer and outspoken advocate for sexual and reproductive health and rights—particularly for universal access to high-quality care, including to safe and legal abortion.
Ipas: LinkedIn & www.ipas.org
Tanvi Monga is Director of Portfolio Impact at The Audacious Project. She partners with Audacious-funded organizations, supporting them from investment readiness through the full project term, to strengthen execution, learning, and measurable impact. Drawing on experience as both a global health implementer and philanthropic advisor, Tanvi’s work spans sexual and reproductive health and rights, maternal and child health, gender equity, and the intersection of climate and health.
Launched in 2018, The Audacious Project is a collaborative funding initiative dedicated to supporting bold ideas with the potential to change the world. Housed at TED and powered by the belief that ideas change everything, Audacious leverages a global network of visionary social entrepreneurs and funders to support bold solutions to the world’s most urgent challenges. Audacious is issue-agnostic and supports grantees to balance audacity and achievability for lasting, systemic impact. Since 2018, Audacious has catalyzed over $7 billion for 70 projects, demonstrating what’s possible when we dream bigger and act together. The funding community includes respected donors and philanthropists including ELMA Philanthropies, Emerson Collective, MacKenzie Scott, Pivotal Ventures, Reed Hastings and Patty Quillin, Skoll Foundation, Valhalla Foundation and more.
The Audacious Project: LinkedIn & www.audaciousproject.org
This venue has a capacity of 60.