Rose aged (15) is a primary seven dropout now a teenage mother to a two weeks old baby boy Aron from Palida village, Ayiro parish, Metu Sub County in Moyo District, She narrates her story, “I live with my mother who is a single parent and due to frustration, she resorted to Alcoholism which became a habit. This caused me a lot of trauma and anger towards my mother for always drinking. I felt that I was the main cause of mother’s drinking, I was constantly worried about the situation at home and feared inviting my friends to our home out of fear of being embarrassed by a drunk mother, I felt confused and wondered if other families were like ours”.
Mother provided no support towards my education and other basic needs as all the little money she would get would be spent on Alcohol”. Due to lack of financial support from my mother, I gave into the endless advances from Justine, a 17 year old student in senior two. I was convinced that he would provide all my basic needs as he had promised to share with me some of his pocket facilitation to help me meet my needs. One day he invited me to attend a night social event which he used as a bait that resulted into my pregnancy. Afraid of the repercussion from mother, I wanted to flee home but was also scared of being homeless. My peers advised me to abort the baby but I took a decision to keep the pregnancy. To my surprise, when mother got to know about it, she didn’t care.
During an outreach session organized for Adolescent change champions by AFOD, I gathered courage to attend and after the session, the project assistant of AFOD called me aside and inquired whether I have been attending ANC services to which I said no due to lack of proper clothing (maternity wear). He advised that as an expectant mother, I needed to attend ANC services (HIV testing, MUAC etc.) at the nearest health facility since such services are offered free of charge. He referred me to Metu health Centre III on the 15th October 2020 where I was offered ANC services.
On a follow up visit by the project assistant, she shared, “If I could be supported, I have much interest to go back to school because I have been performing well in class”.
Just like Rose, there are thousands of teenage girls in Moyo and Adjumani who get pregnant, drop out of school and lead a hard life. This intervention is targeting multiple actors to create synergy and address varying ASRH needs of both the host and refugees communities by seeking to strengthen access to reproductive health information and services in schools, ensure effective coordination between the health and education sectors, working with civil society human rights organizations, police and justice system, families, men, boys, women and girls, religious and cultural leaders to address SGBV and teenage pregnancies which is a growing vice in West Nile.
