The DREAMS (Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored and Safe) partnership is an ambitious public-private partnership to reduce rates of HIV among adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in the highest HIV burden countries. In 2015, 10 DREAMS countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, accounted for nearly half of all the new HIV infections that occurred among AGYW globally. DREAMS funds a Core Package of evidence-informed approaches that go beyond the health sector, addressing the structural drivers that directly or indirectly increase girls’ HIV risk, including poverty, gender inequality, sexual violence, and lack of education. DREAMS builds upon USAID’s decades of experience empowering young women and advancing gender equality across many sectors of global health, education and economic growth. The Agency partners with community, faith-based and non-governmental organizations to address the structural inequalities having an impact on girls’ vulnerability to HIV. The DREAMS Innovation Challenge infuses additional resources and innovative approaches to meet the urgent and complex needs of adolescent girls and young women, supporting interventions with creative ideas that address the following areas: strengthening leadership and capacity of communities, keeping girls in secondary school, linking men to services, supporting pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), providing a bridge to employment, and applying data to increase impact.

Primary Functions

• Funding

Secondary Functions

• Capacity building/Technical assistance
• Networking/Convening
• Policy Development/Implementation
• Program/Project Implementation
• Research - policy analysis
• Research - project evaluation

Geographic Scope

• Global / regional

Attainment

• Post-secondary
• Primary to secondary transition
• Secondary completion

Other

• Transition from school to work

Other skills

• Financial literacy
• Life skills/sexuality education
• Rights/empowerment education
• Vocational training

Quality

• School-related gender-based violence

Website

DREAMS

Headquarters location(s)

• Washington, D.C., , United States of America

Office location(s)

• United States of America