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MADI OKOLLO - Leaders in Madi Okollo and development partners have teamed up to reduce the increasing number of teenage and child pregnancies in the district.

This is after the district registered a high number of teenage and child pregnancies.
In the year 2020 to 2021, the district recorded 1,013 cases of teenage pregnancies. This number increased in the year 2021-2022 to 1,796 registered cases.

More were registered in the year 2022 to 2023 with a total of 1,883 cases. However, due to intervention from partners like Rural Initiative for Community Empowerment (RICE) West Nile, Palm Corps, and SPACE with support from the district, the cases have reduced to 1,325 in the years 2023-2024.

A reduction came as a result of the implementation of a prettier project meant to return girls and boys who dropped out of school to class and continue with education.

The disturbing number of high teenage pregnancies has been a record delivered by the district probation officer Emmanuel Erima during a visit to interact with beneficiaries of girls who attained skills training in various disciplines like tailoring, and hairdressing among others undertaken with funding from the European Union.

Elizabeth Ongom, the EU delegate in charge of civic and youth says many families are grappling with absent parents. He said the presence of men is important in the home.

"Some men have two or three homes, I am not telling you to shut down your homes but balance your presence in those homes. One of the crises we have among male youth is because of absent fathers. The mothers cannot parent a boy child alone compared to a girl child," Ongom said.

She added, "Parenting is not a joke and young ladies need to stop producing children with different men. If you fail to organize yourself, do not expect to find somebody who is organized."

Pax Sakari, the Executive Director RICE West Nile said the project was implemented after making assessments and consultations with the district. 

With funding from the European Union, the consortium partners, RICE West Nile, Palm Corps, and SPACE received shillings 2.2 billion to fight teenage pregnancy and child marriages for a period of two years from 2023, to 2025.

The project's focus is to support 16,000 girls and 16,000 boys of school-age children in eight schools in the two districts to join the fight against teenage pregnancy, child marriage, and school dropout rate.

Swaib Toko, the Resident District Commissioner Madi Okollo notes that some youth are by the roadsides because their parents have failed to take responsibility to transform them, commending the prettier project for transforming the youth.