Project Title: “Empowering teenage mothers with skills for self-reliance and improved livelihood”
Globally, it is estimated that over 2 million girls give birth before they turn 15 each year. That is equal to 5,500 very young girls a day who go directly from childhood to motherhood. These teenage mothers are often out of school, married and exposed to several economic hardships that make their lives complicated and yet they have lives to take care of thereby making their children prone to malnutrition and in extreme cases death.
In Uganda like elsewhere around the world, Covid-19 has led to an increase in teenage pregnancy. In order to gain basic necessities like sanitary towels, girls have engaged in negative coping mechanisms like transactional sex with men who took advantage of their need for money. Teenage pregnancies, among other factors is increasing the number of girls not in school. 98 million adolescent girls worldwide were not in school before COVID yet an additional 20 million is projected to be added due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kasese District in western Uganda ranks highly in the magnitude of early marriages and teenage pregnancies rooted within the cultural norms with research evidence revealing that 52% of women aged 18-67 had prior teenage pregnancy.
It is against this background that Gender-Environment and Development Action is implmenting a skilling programme for teenage mothers to equip them with life skills to help them function independently as adults and parents in Kasese District.
The project goal is “Empowering teenage mothers with Innovative life skills for self-reliance and improved life hoods at household level” and objectives thus;
- To build capacity of teenage mothers in knitting, shoe making, beading and tailoring
- To build capacity of teenage mothers groups in Youth Savings and Credit associations (YSLAs) to ease access to financial services.
- To raise awareness for teenage mothers in infant and lactating mothers nutrition
