“Across East Africa, the majority of young adolescents are living without choice. With little or no access to modern contraceptives and family planning education, they lack the ability to choose when to become pregnant and even how many children to have,” Shane O’Halloran, international team manager for communications for Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevoelkerung (DSW), writes in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists” blog. “Fortunately, due to the intervention of global initiatives such as FP2020, and the work of organizations like [DSW] in Eastern Africa, this situation is gradually changing for the better,” he continues, highlighting DSW’s “Young Adolescents Project” in the region, which is “aimed at removing barriers faced by young adolescents (10 to 14 years) in accessing age-appropriate sexual and reproductive health and rights information” (8/11).