Reproductive Health Awareness Campaign for Young People

In his project proposal, Samuel stated that The rate at which young people get infected with HIV/AIDS and the school drop-out is alarmingly high and according to the child labour study based on the Uganda Demographic and Health Survey 2000/01, there are about 2.7 million working children in Uganda majority (68%) are girls having dropped out of school especially due to unwanted pregnancies. Current HIV/AIDS reports shows that the infections are higher among the youth. Most youths are victims of cross-generation sex-where older men/women entice the youth with material gains and money and use them as sex objects.

In this one year project, Samuel and his team intend to reach out to young people in schools and institutions of higher learning, empowering them with Reproductive Health (RH) issues. Doing so will help these young people avoid unwanted pregnancies and HIV/AIDS. And thus youths will be able to complete their studies successfully. Further, girl child drop out rates and HIV/AIDS infections including death during abortions will be halted.

Sexual Reproductive Health Provision (RH) will be extended to the youth in a youth friendly approach. In every school visited, the trained youth will be turned into peer educators empowered to empower their fellow teenagers about RH and HIV/AIDS. In conjunction with school heads, records regarding school enrolment and girl child drop out rate due to un wanted pregnancies as well as HIV/AIDS infection rate in schools will be kept at each of the visited schools in order to be able to make a conclusion whether the school RH empowerment workshops created a positive impact or not.

This is a very timely intervention in creating awareness among teenage girls in school. This unique project will not only leave the teenagers more empowered with RH matters, enable them avoid getting HIV/ AIDS but will for the first time provide a platform on which the hitherto sacred issues regarding sexuality will be discussed.