Siaya residents have been urged to support the re-entry of teenage mothers to school.
The Forum for African Women Educationalists, Siaya County coordinator Evalyne Amunga, said there are lots of girls who are yet to return to school after dropping out due to teenage pregnancies in the county.
“I would like to encourage all partners and stakeholders to join hands and advocate for the rights of these learners. We have those girls who dropped out of school due to teenage pregnancies and we are really advocating for the re-entry of teen mothers,” Amunga said.
Amunga spoke to the Star during a Tuseme club event at Nyapiedho mixed secondary school in Gem Wagai subcounty, Siaya County on Friday.
“We have seen stakeholders coming out to advocate for the rights of learners and donate sanitary pads that learners need so that they don’t trade for sex that has been the major course of teenage pregnancies in the county,” Amunga said.
FAWE is implementing the ‘Imerisha Mschana’ project under the Master Card Foundation, a two–year – project launched in the year 2022.
“This is a post-Covid – 19 project that started as a result of high teenage pregnancies caused as a result of COVID–19,” Amunga said.
Amunga said Siaya County was among those that were highly hit by the issue of teenage pregnancies during the pandemic and still is.
“As per the Kenya Demographic Health Survey, we were at 21 per cent and the figures are still high. So, we are here trying to come up with solutions on how we can manage incidents of teenage pregnancies and child marriages in Siaya County,” Amunga said.
She said there were several interventions they were implementing in eight schools within the county to address issues of teenage pregnancies and child marriages.
Among them, is Tuseme clubs that they have established in the schools.
Tuseme Club is an initiative that is used by FAWE to execute its programs in various schools across all its projects in several counties in the country.
FAWE is a pan-African non-governmental organization founded in 1992 by five women ministers of education to promote girls' and women's education in sub-Saharan countries.
“Tuseme club is unique since it gives learners safe spaces to speak out and air issues that affect their social and academic lives. Through the club, we have seen learners building their confidence, they are more resilient and assertive,” Amunga said.
Amunga said the club had also seen learners become more creative and innovative thereby coming up with solutions on how to address problems that affect them.
“In most of the schools we work with, we had high cases of teenage pregnancies, but we have seen a drastic drop in teenage pregnancies in the schools due to our intervention. We are also encouraging the re-entry of those teen girls who got pregnant and are willing to go back to school,” she said.
She said the program had so far seen high rates of re-entry of teen mothers in school as well as retention and transition to the next levels.
The schools under the Imarisha Mschana program in Siaya County include Nyapiedho Mixed, Got Osimbo Girls, Uria Girls, Nyaguda Mixed, Rambira Girls, Nyamonye Integrated Comprehensive and Nyangulu Comprehensive secondary schools.
Amunga said they chose the schools since most of them were vulnerable.
“Learners from these schools come from very remote areas of Siaya County and being pioneer schools in the project, we want to target them so that they can be champions and ambassadors in the community as well as neighbouring schools,” Amunga said.
The project advocates for the rights of learners and a conducive environment to study and achieve their academic goals.
She said they also work with communities and had trained male champions through the ‘I care about her’ campaign.
“These male champions take centre stage to advocate for the rights of these learners. Imarisha Mschana is purely an advocacy project,” Amunga said.
“Let’s identify the learners who are out of school, give them adequate support that they need and through the sensitization that we have done, I’m comfortable to say that teachers in the schools are now more gender-responsive hence will accommodate them in school and give them second chance to achieve their academic goals,” Amunga said.
