Brief History

The Yemen Family Care Association (YFCA) was founded in 1976 by a group of Yemeni volunteers out of a genuine aspiration to establish a non-governmental organization that aims to raise awareness on reproductive health and family planning at the level of both community and government. YFCA is held in high regard within local communities and well recognized by government, UN agencies, national and international NGOs for extensive attainments, maintaining high credibility and remaining steadily as a neutral and independent organization at all times.
In 1977, YFCA was recognized and authorized by the Yemeni government as the first and exclusive marketer and distributer of contraceptives, on a national level, to all service provision centers, including those of the Ministry of Health. In 1980, YFCA carried out a study on available brands of contraceptives in the Yemeni market, which was the first of its kind in Yemen.
The implementation of such campaign was not easy in a society where even talking about family planning seemed to be dangerous at that time. Nevertheless, YFCA considers the increasing contraceptive prevalence rate as a satisfactory compensation for its perilous endeavors to establish a contraceptive-market in Yemen followed by intensive programs that have lasted for decades with the aim of raising decision makers’ awareness and contribution to changing  behaviors and perception within the families and community.
YFCA has played a significant role on a national level in bringing citizen’s concerns to the attention of government, monitoring policies and implementation of programs, and encouraging the participation of civil society stakeholders in the community. In the early nineties, despite the complexities of the political situation then, YFCA played a significant role in drawing the government’s attention to the importance of adopting a resilient national population policy, and this endeavor resulted in the endorsement of the first National Population Policy in Yemen in 1991 as well as the formation of a National Population Council, chaired by the Prime Minister, in which YFCA was a member representing the national NGOs. This step was crucial and led to the launching of a new era that shed light on perspectives of population issues with a wider scope and profound insight.
 
YFCA works with alliances on national and international levels to defend and strengthen the ICPD program of action. It has worked specifically to improve access to reproductive health, advocate for reproductive rights and combat gender-based violence.
YFCA continued performing its indefatigable efforts to draw government’s attention to the importance of enacting a legislation that maintains women and young underage girls’ health and dignity. Those efforts have led the government to prepare and submit a draft law on Maternal Health to the parliament for approval. In 2012, YFCA carried out, in cooperation with USAID, a national campaign advocating and calling for the approval of the Maternal Health draft law, which is currently in the parliamentary agenda. Within its clauses, this draft law includes the determination of the minimum legal age of marriage for girls is 17 years. As a result of this campaign, the draft law has gained many supporters in the corridors of the Parliament and we are positively hoping that the final approval will be obtained within this year. In 2014, YFCA played a major role in advocating women’s law that was about to be endorsed by the parliament back then.
Dramatic changes in YFCA mandate were introduced gradually to accommodate the emerging needs of women, children, youth and vulnerable groups. Therefore, to pursue our unchanging humanitarian mission, we have been increasing our interventions through providing services and relief to the people in need and demanding their rights by working as a pressure group that joins the affected communities and works closely with them. 
For four decades, YFCA has been playing a unique role in strengthening cooperation, professionalism, governance, and effective development of many Civil Society Organizations which are working across different sectors in Yemen.
YFCA will thoughtfully continue its expansion process to respond to the community’s ever changing needs. Driven by its Health and Gender Mainstreaming perspective, YFCA programs incorporate wider thematic interventions including Nutrition, Protection, Food Security, Agriculture and Livelihood, Education, Early Recovery, WASH and Shelter.
 

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