YUMBE TEENAGE MOTHERS EMBRACE BACK TO SCHOOL CAMPAIGN

The senior woman teacher of Kado primary school in Yumbe district Ms. Nadia Siasa shares a light moment with some of the teenage mothers at the school recently. PHOTO BY ROBERT ELEMA 

BY ROBERT ELEMA

YUMBE

A section of the teenage mothers who dropped out of school due to early marriage and teenage pregnancy in Yumbe district have made a decision to go back to school. According to the teenage mothers, their decision to get married was out of ignorance and that their actions are regrettable.

Viola Atizoyo, 17, a pupil of Nipata Valley primary school in Bidibidi zone 4 settlement said she got pregnant in 2023 when she was in primary six and dropped out of school. She says, life became hard for her while at home and there was no support she could get from the baby’s father because he decided to run away.
 
‘’I stayed home till December last year when i gave birth to a baby girl. It was hard for me to get the necessities like soap, clothes, smearing oil among other necessities for the baby and my parents equally abandoned me and they would tell me to go and get the items for the baby from my husband," she said. "It was not an easy for me that time, so later, I resorted to engaging in casual labor so that I could earn something to fend for the baby. I realized that I had gone wrong and I started thinking of going back to school," she added.
 
Atizoyo's dream of going back to school came after hearing the good news that Plan International, an NGO operating in Bidibidi refugee settlement was looking for teenage mothers to be supported in school.

Atizoyo says, her child is still 7months old but decided to return to school this year and started from where she had left. “When I joined, I immediately started receiving items like sugar, smearing oil, soya bean flour, clothes, scholastic materials, Soap, among others from Plan International and this support has relieved me from buying such items," she said.

Atizoyo says, when she comes to school, she leaves the baby with her mother and when it is break and lunch time, she goes home to breast feed the baby and later comes back to attend lessons.

Similarly, Viola Keji, 16, a South Sudanese pupil from Knowledge Land primary school said, she dropped out of school in 2020 when she was in P.4 but got married to a pupil of the same school in 2022. Keji says, after their marriage, things started worsening and later joined her family members because her husband decided to go to Juba.

 Last year Keji delivered a baby girl and when the baby was 6months old, she showed the interest of going back to school and re-joined in 2023. "I would go to school late because I had to first prepare porridge and breast feed the baby but my friends at school would abuse and laugh at me that I am ever coming to school late but I later made a decision to drop out of the school again for the second time so that I have enough time to care for my baby," she said.

"My parents couldn't support me in buying the necessities for the baby but I resorted to doing casual labor and on average I earned between Shs10,000 and Shs30,000 from the work I do to address the needs of the baby," she added. Keji says, she got an information from the teachers that, Plan International has a campaign of supporting and sending teenage mothers back to school so, she had to use this chance of enrolling back to school this year and she is now in Primary Five.

"My baby is now one and a half years old and it's my mother taking care of the baby when I am in school. With the support I am getting from Plan International, it has relieved me from the stress that I have been experiencing,'' she said.

Mr. Jamal Abdi, the Yumbe district Senior Education Officer (SEO) said, they still notice challenges in completion rates and the number of learners who are able to complete the primary circle is still very low in the district.

Looking at the statistics, Mr Jamal said, the number of candidates who sat for PLE in 2023 were around 6,000 but when you look at that cohort seven years back when that cohort was in primary one, the number was much bigger and that according to the calculations, it was discovered that, the completion rate was at 23 per cent meaning that the dropout rate was at 77 per cent which is a huge number.

"If there are learners who haven't completed the circle, how can we target them to empower them so that they are skillful and they are able to meet their needs but also make a contribution to the society? As a sector, we are trying to make follow-up in the communities to document this category of children, profile them and working with the partners, we are already enrolling them for the skills courses,’’ he said.

He said, their target for the start is to have around 400 and these are mainly girls who got pregnant and dropped out of school so that they are enrolled to different trades and get various skills to improve on their livelihoods.
 
Ms. Mariam Nakasango, the Assistant Community Services Officer at Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) said, they have cases of children who have been victims of marriage and teenage pregnancy in the community where the refugees have settled.

"Enrolling back and giving the girls the second chance is a good idea and getting pregnant is not the end of the world. In the settlement here, we have given our girls the second chance of going back to school and we have even gone to the ground routes telling the parents not to block these children from going to school because they have a right to Education," she said.

Intervention

Mr. Rahuman Karim the project officer for Education Can't Wait (ECW) project at Plan International said, they are implementing ECW funded project, Gender Responsive Education and Child Protection for refugees and the host Community in Bidibidi refugee settlement.

He said, it's a 3year project that began last year in May and will end in Dec, 2025 and its being implemented in 6 refugee schools and 2 government aided host Community primary schools. “We intend to reach out to 353 teenage mothers. We do activities to mobilize them to ensure that they enroll back to school and last year, we mobilized 60 of them who joined the 8 Primary schools we are supporting and seven of them who completed P.7 joined Secondary Education," he added.

He said this year, they mobilized and enrolled back to school 55 teenage mothers with the support of the partners, teachers, caregivers, Community structures and the child protection committees including the government structures at the various levels.