MY LIFE. MY HEALTH. MY FUTURE.
Know Yourself. Make Better Choices. Build a Healthier Future.
Growing up is more than going to school, passing examinations, and choosing a career.
It is also about discovering who you are, understanding your emotions, navigating relationships, dealing with pressure, making decisions, understanding the changes that come with adolescence, and gradually deciding what kind of person you want to become.
MY LIFE. MY HEALTH. MY FUTURE. is a student development programme by MyAfya Health Solutions designed to help secondary school students develop these foundations.
We bring guided conversations and practical personal development learning into schools, creating a space where students can think about themselves, their choices, their relationships, their health, and their future.
Growing up comes with questions.
Who am I?
Why do I feel the way I feel?
How do I deal with pressure from friends, family, school, and society?
What makes a relationship healthy or unhealthy?
Who am I becoming?
What do I want my future to look like?
Young people are constantly receiving messages about who they should be, how they should behave, what success looks like, and what they are expected to become.
Some of these messages come from parents and teachers. Others come from friends, social media, popular culture, and the communities around them.
Yet students are not always given enough opportunities to stop and ask:
What do I actually think? What do I value? What kind of person do I want to become?
This is where MY LIFE. MY HEALTH. MY FUTURE. comes in.
The programme creates a structured space for students to explore these questions, build self-awareness, develop healthier ways of relating to others, understand themselves during adolescence, and think intentionally about their future.
Young people need to understand themselves.
They need to know
how to recognise their strengths,
manage difficult emotions,
respond to pressure,
build respectful relationships,
ask for help,
make responsible decisions,
and think beyond the present moment.
These are skills that influence how a young person navigates school, friendships, family, relationships, health, work, and adulthood.
MY LIFE. MY HEALTH. MY FUTURE. brings these conversations into the school environment in a way that is structured, age-appropriate, and relevant to students' everyday lives.
The programme is built around four connected pillars.
Each pillar addresses a different part of growing up, but together they form one journey:
KNOW YOURSELF
Who am I?
Students explore identity, personality, values, strengths, weaknesses, interests, confidence, influences, and self-worth.
They are encouraged to understand that they are more than their grades, appearance, friendships, social media presence, or other people's opinions.
Knowing yourself is the starting point for making better choices.
UNDERSTAND YOURSELF & OTHERS
How do I manage myself and my relationships?
Students explore emotions, communication, relationships, boundaries, respect, conflict, peer pressure, and help-seeking.
One of the key ideas introduced is:
FEEL → PAUSE → THINK → CHOOSE
Emotions are important, but they do not have to make every decision for us.
Students learn to create a space between what they feel and what they choose to do.
ADOLESCENCE, SEXUALITY & IDENTITY
Who am I becoming, and who gets to decide?
Adolescence brings physical, emotional, social, and psychological changes.
It can also bring new expectations about appearance, relationships, gender, sexuality, responsibility, and what it means to "be a man" or "be a woman."
Students are given an opportunity to think critically about these expectations and understand themselves beyond their bodies or the roles others may assign to them.
The focus is on identity, confidence, respect, responsibility, relationships, and informed decision-making.
KNOW YOUR FUTURE
Where am I going?
The future can feel very far away when you are a secondary school student.
But the decisions, habits, relationships, attitudes, and skills developed today can influence the opportunities available tomorrow.
Students explore interests, strengths, possible career pathways, personal goals, habits, discipline, character, curiosity, and the different routes they can take after secondary school.
The message is simple:
Your future does not have to look like someone else's. But it is worth thinking about.
We believe that a powerful conversation should not disappear when a student leaves the classroom.
Each participating student can receive a personal development guide designed to help them continue reflecting on the ideas introduced during the programme.
The guide encourages students to think about:
Who am I?
What are my strengths?
What do I value?
How do I respond when I am under pressure?
What makes a healthy relationship?
Who can I ask for help?
Who am I becoming?
What kind of future do I want?
What choices can I make today that support that future?
BUILDING HEALTHIER COMMUNITIES THROUGH YOUNG PEOPLE
A school is more than a place where students receive academic knowledge.
It is one of the places where young people develop the attitudes, behaviours, relationships, and beliefs that they carry into adulthood.
When a young person learns to understand themselves, manage emotions, respect others, recognise unhealthy pressure, seek help, and make thoughtful decisions, the impact can extend beyond that individual.
It can influence friendships.
It can influence families.
It can influence future workplaces.
It can influence communities.
That is why we see this programme not simply as a school intervention, but as an investment in healthier young people and healthier communities.
WE HAVE STARTED.
MY LIFE. MY HEALTH. MY FUTURE. has moved from an idea into the classroom.
Our first programme implementation took place at:
GOBA MPAKANI SECONDARY SCHOOL
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Students had the opportunity to engage with the programme and begin conversations around self-awareness, relationships, adolescence, identity, decision-making, and their future.
This first implementation is an important starting point for what we hope will become a programme reaching many more schools and young people.
WE WANT TO REACH MORE STUDENTS
There are many schools and many young people who could benefit from spaces like this.
But reaching more schools requires more than an idea.
It requires people and organisations willing to contribute.
We are looking for schools, companies, foundations, development partners, health organisations, education stakeholders, and individuals who believe that investing in young people's development is an investment in the future of our communities.
You can support the programme by:
FUNDING
Support the cost of delivering the programme to more schools and students.
PARTNERING
Bring expertise, resources, networks, or technical support that can strengthen the programme.
HOSTING
Work with us to bring the programme to your school or community.
CONTRIBUTING
Support student materials, learning resources, transport, technology, monitoring and evaluation, or other programme needs.
Every contribution can help us take the conversation to another school.
MEASURING MORE THAN ATTENDANCE
We do not only want to know how many students attended.
We want to understand whether the programme is making a difference.
Students complete structured pre- and post-programme assessments covering areas such as self-awareness, emotional understanding, relationships, decision-making, identity, and future thinking.
We also collect student reflections, facilitator observations, and feedback from schools and teachers.
This helps us understand:
What are students learning?
What is changing in their thinking?
What are they finding useful?
What needs to improve?
As the programme grows, this evidence will help us continuously strengthen the intervention and communicate its impact to schools, partners, and supporters.
MY LIFE. MY HEALTH. MY FUTURE.
Know Yourself. Make Better Choices. Build a Healthier Future.
We believe every young person deserves the opportunity to understand themselves, ask important questions, make informed choices, and imagine a future they can actively work towards.
This is where the journey begins.