Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /usr/www/users/urnnet/a/story.php on line 43 Luuka District to Get Vocational Institute for Teenage Mothers :: Uganda Radionetwork
A report by the United Nations Population fund shows that Busoga sub-region contributes to over 7 per cent of teenage pregnancies recorded during the lockdown, a majority of them in the Kamuli and Luuka districts.
Luuka
District in Eastern Uganda will soon have a fully-fledged vocational
training centre to take care of more than 700 teenage mothers, youths
and Persons with disabilities, thanks to a new campaign by See Them Grow Foundation-STGF.
Brian Asiimwe Kagurusi, the Project Director of See
Them Grow Foundation says that the NGO wants to train and
skill the affected teenagers in hairdressing and tailoring among others, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic that resulted in school closures, and came with a surge in teenage pregnancies.
Records
show that up to 354,736 teenage pregnancies were registered in 2020,
the first year of the lockdown and 196,499 in the first six months of
2021. It is also estimated that more than 30,000 teenage
girls became pregnant each month in 2021, including
about 250 children aged under 15 – mostly due to sexual abuse or
coercion, according to UNICEF estimates.
A report by the United Nations Population fund shows that Busoga sub-region contributes to over 7 per cent of teenage pregnancies recorded during the lockdown, a majority of them in the Kamuli and Luuka districts. Earlier in the year, Luuka District Children Welfare Officer, Hamuza Lubaale said that the district had recorded 770 pregnancies of girls under 18 during the pandemic.
Poverty,
negative media influence characterized by nudity and obscenity,
low acceptance and uptake of contraceptives, and a lack of youth-friendly
corners have been identified as triggers for teenage pregnancies in the region. It's on the basis of this that the
NGO has now collaborated with
Pride of Entebbe and Spouts of Water as well as the Rotary Clubs of
Bwebajja, Bwerenga, Muyenga, Garuga and Entebbe to raise funds for
vocational institutes
to benefit teenage mothers in Luuka.
//Cue in; "We organised this...
Cue out...in the institute."//
Kagurusi says the
institute that will sit on 10 acres of land in Luuka district will be built in
phases with the first phase estimated to cost 200,000 US Dollars (780 million Shillings).
The organisation has so far received
5,000 US Dollars (20 million Shillings) from the US-based Luena
Foundation and built a block with four classrooms. It is also expecting
money from the Rockefeller Foundation and other individuals who have
pledged to make financial contributions for the same cause. An additional three million Shillings was collected in a run that was held on Saturday in Entebbe.
//Cue in; "We are going...
Cue out...can work with."//
Rotarians Michael Ayebazibwe and Harriet Bampeera Obbo have lauded See
Them Grow Limited for partnering with different Rotary clubs to support
teenage mothers in Luuka district. She said that teenage
mothers must be skilled now so that they can start income-generating
projects to support themselves and raise their children.
Joan Akello
Freelancer