Kwabena Lartey

Kwabena Lartey graduated from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2021 with a Master’s in Public Health and as a 2020 Harvard Presidential Scholar. He has over 5 years of experience in youth advocacy and adolescent health promotion. He is the Founder/Executive director of Books for Him & Her, a non-profit focused on increasing access to sexual health resources and skills training for adolescents using stigma-neutral spaces such as youth libraries. He started this work through aHnonymous GH, a virtual platform that was set up to promote stigma-free HIV education, prevention and care through partnerships with other youth organizations. Through his work, Kwabena has enabled access to Sexual Health Trainings for over 500 adolescents, provided free HIV counseling and testing for over 2000 persons, and provided linkages to care for several young persons with challenges sexual health issues. His goal is to through Books for Him & Her, set up stigma-neutral well-resourced physical youth spaces across all 16 regions of Ghana and beyond to improve life experiences for Ghanaian youth within as they develop sexually, physically, and mentally. He aspires to be a Global Health Policy expert advancing social change among historically disadvantaged populations.

As a Cheng fellow, Kwabena developed Books for Him and Her to address the education gap in sexual and reproductive health faced by approximately 48% of young persons in Ghana. Kwabena loves music, trying new recipes, and learning new languages.