With these priorities in mind, we worked with adolescent girls and other stakeholders to brainstorm potential solutions and develop them through prototyping. It was important that adolescent girls, their partners and families and the wider community liked the solutions and saw the importance of providing them. We also worked hard to make sure our solutions could be delivered by the community with the resources available to them.

When we started, we weren’t sure that one solution would work in both countries but through this process it became clear that the challenges and priorities were shared. The Thriving Mamas programme (known as Malkia wa Malengo in Kenya and Kuthandizana in Mozambique) is a set of group, individual, and family meetings designed to prepare adolescent girls for pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. In addition, there is a strong focus on building girls’ life skills (such as problem-solving, building supportive relationships, and planning for the future). The programme is tailored to each girl through individual meetings where girls can discuss their own situation and specific needs and receive mental health screening and referrals where appropriate. Meetings are facilitated by mentor mothers, women in the community who have experience of motherhood and are committed to supporting adolescent mothers to thrive.