🇲🇺MauritiusEast Africa
Vice President Hungley inaugurates MauZen, Mauritius' first youth-focused sexual, reproductive, and mental health space
via Le Mauricien3 min read
Vice President Robert Hungley inaugurated MauZen, Mauritius' first free, confidential, and walk-in sexual, reproductive, and mental health space dedicated to young people. MauZen also offers GenZee, a 24/7 chatbot providing reliable sexual health information. Hungley emphasized that challenges faced by Mauritian youth, such as early pregnancies, addictions, online exploitation, mental health difficulties, and sexually transmitted infections, are not individual failures but symptoms of structural inequalities. He stated that young people are citizens with rights, aspirations, and immense potential, not statistics or problems to manage. The Vice President highlighted the importance of human connection over punishment in addiction prevention, noting that prevention begins with trust. He also called upon boys and young men to be essential partners in equality, promoting masculinities based on respect, empathy, and responsibility, and stressing that consent is non-negotiable. Regarding the GenZee chatbot, Hungley acknowledged that technology cannot replace human relationships but can open doors previously closed by shame and fear, empowering young people with reliable information. He concluded by stating that the Republic owes its youth a society where no child grows up in shame, no adolescent faces a crisis alone, and no young person is deprived of information or support due to their location or situation. MauZen is an initiative of the MFPWA, funded by the European Union, under
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