Life Skills Education to End Teenage Pregnancy

Dear Friend and Partner

How wonderful to speak to you about the progress we have been making in empowering students with life-skills education courtesy of your support.

Over the past 2 months (June and July), we have done 8 school outreaches at Nyasumi mixed secondary school, Nyasumi primary school, Rigoma secondary school, Rigoma girls secondary school, Matutu secondary school, Riooga mixed secondary school, and Nyanchonori secondary school. Together, we reached at least 1500 students.

The vision behind the project life skills education to end teenage pregnancy is to sensitize students with messages and skills to stay focussed on education and avoid early sexual activities which lead to teenage pregnancy and put them at risk of other social problems such as dropping out of school, violence, and poverty. While our work has been successful in preventing teenage pregnancy through impacting the students with life skills, in some situations, we find that some of the students reached are either pregnant or juggling studies and taking care of their young ones. 11 of the students reached were teenage mothers and 4 were pregnant. Because of the sensitivity of the matters, we privately spoke to the girls to understand the challenges they are facing, how they are solving them, and what the future looks like in terms of studies and career aspirations. The beneficiries had the following to say regarding the activities:

"We are grateful to HFAW for visiting us and hearing the problems we are facing as students. We appreciate that they have listened to the many problems that we are experiencing. Personally, my parents are poor and cannot afford to sufficiently support me through purchasing me sanitary towels. This stresses me and affects my concentration in class. I believe this is the reason some girls are having sexual relationships. But for me I am determined to complete my studies", Betty from Nyasumi secondary school during the school outreach.

" I would like to thank our guests for visiting us at Nyasumi. The problem we are facing here is because of negligence and lack of awareness among parents. Some of them are wallowing in alcohol. Others have insisted on holding on to the harmful culture of female genital mutilation. We would like you to also organize the same forum for parents to sensitize them because they are the main reason why the practice still continues despite being banned in Kenya", Josephine, a teacher at Nyasumi.

" We are facing a lot of problems. Some of us only have a set of school uniforms. Therefore, when we break, we run home to go wash and wait for them to dry which takes a lot of time. While I wait, others are continuing with their studies and this severely contributes to me being left behind in studies", Precious, from Rigoma.

Dear friend, as you can feel from the sentiments of the students and teachers, numerous problems derail the academic progress of girls and put them at risk of teenage pregnancy. We are happy that the message reached home and the students were trusting enough to open up to us hoping for change. We are committed to changing the situation for the better through this project. We are humbled by the support you give us to solve the reality of teenage pregnancy in our community. Kindly share our work with your loved ones so that they can see the change you are making in our community.