My name is Tendai, I am 19 years old and live in the rural and remote Village of Zumbira in a place called Mutoko in Zimbabwe.About 5 years ago I was part of program to address health challenges facedby adolescent girls, which was funded by donor X (from the US), and implemented by Y-INGO, which had its main office in Washington DC and a local implementing office.When Y-INGO came to workin our community, we first noticed their presence when they engaged with our village chief, who gathered girls of my age and told us we were to be a part of the adolescent girls' program.At the first meeting, Y-INGO staff members, who all resided in the city of Harare, arranged us into different age groups. They informed us of the activities they had designed together with donor X, which we were to participate in and benefit from.Although my friend, Fungai and I tried to enquire more on the activities and to make suggestions based on what we knew about our community, the Y-INGO staff members indicated that the activities had already been approved. They told us that any changes would be entertained after 2 years at the mid term evaluation of the project, if at all.Throughout the project, data and information was collected from us and from across our community. We did not know what it was for, who it was given to and some of the data collectors seemed suspicious to us. However, our focus was to simply benefit from the project and concerns about this data seemed either a luxury or a matter beyond our level.We really enjoyed participating in the project, as it brought us together as a community, but it was only in the evenings, after project staff had left for the city, that we openly and secretly shared our discomforts on some aspects of the project. At times when we garnered the courage to ask, which was unusual to the project staff, we always got a response that Y-INGO management in the US had made final and unchangeable decisions.