Navigate Together: Youth for HIV Access
Invisible to the system that should protect them
For gender-diverse young people in Rangpur Division — one of Bangladesh’s most underserved regions — the barriers to HIV prevention, testing, treatment and care are not mainly medical. They are human-rights barriers: stigma and discrimination inside health facilities, the fear that seeking a test means disclosing who you are, doubt about whether confidentiality will hold, the near-total absence of youth-friendly and inclusive services, and widespread misinformation.
The result is a quiet withdrawal. Many young people from gender-diverse and marginalised communities stop seeking HIV services altogether — becoming invisible to the health system at exactly the moment their risk is highest. And their voices are almost never present in the rooms where HIV services are designed and funded.
Navigate Together answers that with youth leadership rather than another top-down programme. It sets out to document these barriers directly from young people’s own lived experience, carry their recommendations into the spaces where decisions are made, and build a standing network of young peer navigators who can guide others to the services they are entitled to.
What the project sets out to do
Document the barriers. Capture the obstacles young people face in accessing HIV services directly from their lived experiences, and channel their recommendations to stakeholders through a Community Voices Brief.
Build a navigators network. Establish a Youth HIV Navigators Network of young peer leaders drawn from across the districts of Rangpur Division, to guide peers toward services and carry the advocacy forward.
Equip young leaders. Train the Navigators in the knowledge, advocacy and personal and digital safety skills they need to address the very barriers their community has identified.
Three activities in eight weeks
Community Consultation & Advocacy
A one-day consultation brings gender-diverse youth together with local HIV stakeholders — government health authorities and service providers — so duty-bearers hear the barriers in young people’s own words. Using participatory methods, the session captures both the obstacles and the community’s recommendations, which become a concise bilingual Community Voices Brief disseminated to key HIV stakeholders.
Youth HIV Navigators Network
The project formally establishes a Youth HIV Navigators Network of young peer leaders drawn from across the districts of Rangpur Division, launched with the consultation findings as its advocacy agenda. The Navigators become peer resource points — guiding others to services, documenting barriers, and carrying the brief to local stakeholders.
Skills-Development Training
A residential training equips the Navigators with knowledge of HIV services and rights, advocacy skills, and — crucially — personal and digital safety. The barriers identified in the consultation shape the curriculum, and each Navigator leaves with a simple action plan for their own district.
Safety is built into every step
Because of who this project serves, protection is a design condition rather than an afterthought. Safe, private venues are used throughout; participant identities are kept strictly confidential; informed consent is obtained from everyone taking part; and participation is voluntary at every stage. Recruitment runs through trusted community networks and peer referral rather than open advertisement, and Noboprobhaat Foundation’s safeguarding and PSEA protocols apply across all activities. For that reason, this page describes the project only in general terms — no locations, identities or participant details are published.
From invisible to heard
This is a short, intensive project with a deliberately durable aim. Its work is designed to leave three things behind that outlast the two-month grant:
- ✓A record that did not exist before: the barriers gender-diverse youth face in accessing HIV services in Rangpur, documented from lived experience and formally placed before duty-bearers — heard directly from young people themselves.
- ✓A Community Voices Brief: a concise, bilingual, community-validated advocacy tool carrying young people’s own recommendations to the stakeholders who design and deliver HIV services.
- ✓A standing network of young leaders: peer navigators across the districts of Rangpur, trained and equipped to keep guiding others to services and advocating for rights-based, stigma-free care beyond the life of the grant.
Young people who had stopped seeking services become the ones who guide others toward them.
Who makes this possible
The Global Fund — Community, Rights and Gender (CRG)
Youth LEAD
