Health & Human Rights Program

About

The Health and Human Rights Program, launched in 2017, aims to improve the health and protection of some of the world’s most marginalized people – those experiencing violence and those impacted by conflict, natural disaster, or other humanitarian crises. Using innovative methods and intense technical assistance, our staff design and implement applied research, partnering with leading local and international organizations to develop new tools, guidelines, and interventions that can improve health and save lives.

Currently, our program is working to better understand the health impacts of exploitation, such as trafficking and child marriage, on the lives of youth in order to design youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services and programming to prevent and respond to gender-based violence.

Projects

The program has three completed or ongoing projects:

Supporting Youth at Risk of Commercial Sexual Exploitation (2019-ongoing): In partnership with the City of San Francisco’s Department on the Status of Women, Freedom Forward, and other Bay Area-based service providers, we will develop and evaluate an innovative family-based foster care pilot designed to serve youth who have experienced or are at risk of commercial sexual exploitation.
Preventing Child Marriage in Humanitarian Settings (2018-ongoing): In partnership with Save the Children and Plan International, this multi-year research project seeks to improve our understanding of child marriage in humanitarian emergencies and what works to prevent it.
Safer Cash Programming in Emergencies (2017-2018): The USAID-funded “Safer Cash” project, in partnership with the International Rescue Committee, provided humanitarian practitioners with research and tools to make cash programming safer for some of the most vulnerable groups in emergencies, including people with disabilities, older people, and female-heads of households.