Teen mother with disability beats odds to raise her baby

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Approximately 160kms from Uganda’s capital Kampala is Nsirisisi village Budhaya sub-county in Bugiri district where Sandra Namukose (not real name) an 18-year-old teen mother with physical disability resides.

In 2005, Namukose was born without a disability; however, according to her parents, got a severe fever in 2010 and was rushed to hospital for treatment.

Her father (names withheld) narrated that despite the treatment, his daughter’s situation was not getting any better, prompting them to take her home to ease the hospital bills due to financial constraints.

“We gave up on our daughter’s life only waiting for her death. We took her to traditional healers too but in vain,” he further narrated.

The father said during this period of sickness, their daughter got crippled with her legs, hands, and part of her backbone getting twisted.

He said their daughter spent almost a year lying on the ground without walking. However, with constant massages from herbalists, she started walking slowly with the support of a crutch.

He added that they failed to get a specialized school around that could attend to Namukose whom she said was not even talking at the time.

“My daughter did not acquire any education as the schools for children with special needs were far and we could not afford them,” the father, who is a fisherman, explained.

Motherhood

Last year when Namukose was 17 years old, she conceived after being defiled by one of the men in their neighborhood.

“After the act, the man ran away, leaving the responsibility of raising the pregnancy to me and my grandmother that I stay with,” she recalled.

When she was about to give birth, her family put pressure on the relatives of the man to support them with finances that catered for medical bills of the mother who underwent a caesarian.

The teen mother who gave birth last year to a baby boy said taking care of her child’s needs is a challenge as her grandmother and father often look out for what to eat.

“I started selling cigarettes to get money to cater for our needs like health, however, profits could hardly cover half of our needs,” she said.

Rate of teenage pregnancies

Since 2019 when COVID-19 started, the district had an outbreak of teenage pregnancies especially during the lockdown leaving it with a challenge of child mothers.

Bugiri district assistant District Health Officer in Charge of midwives and nurses Rose Naula Naula indicated that they still have a high number of teenage pregnancies standing at 30% however, it was clear that the number is for those that seek health care services at facilities.

“We suspect that the number of teenage pregnancies that do not show up at health facilities may be more than that of those we record at the facilities,” she said.

Sandra Namukose (not real name), an 18-year-old teen mother with a physical disability being trained in tailoring by one of her instructors. This was at Budhaya sub-county Bugiri district recently. (All Photos by Lawrence Mulondo)

In October this year, Namukose was selected to be a part of the 80 teenage mothers in Namutumba and Bugiri districts who are currently receiving vocational skills training in tailoring.

The mothers are receiving training under the Scale-Up Reduction of Teenage Pregnancies project implemented by Amref Health Africa in Busoga sub-region, with sh3.7b funding from the European Union.

Namukose who is training at Bukooli Technical School in Bugiri is hopeful that after her training, she will be able to start a tailoring business that will help her afford a good education and life in general for her and her child.

In the two districts where the project is being implemented, four sub-counties in each of the districts with a teenage pregnancy rate above 25% of the national rate were selected to benefit.

The sub-counties in Namutumba include Kagulu, Magada, Namutumba, and Buyange while in Bugiri district the project is in Budaya, Kapyanga, Bulesa, and Yuwemba.

Dolly Ajok, the Project Manager working with Amref Health Africa explained that the teen mothers in their first month of training are at Basoga Nsadu Memorial Vocational Training Institute in Namutumba and Bukooli Technical School in Bugiri.

Ajok said many of the teens are going through nonformal training however they will later join the formal training at the same institutions.

“We have come into agreement with the mothers that after training, each is to train three other girls either in their locality to have a skill multiplier effect,” Ajok said.

She added that the girls will have financial literacy training where they will have them understand the basics of financing including planning, budgeting, saving, and spending among others.

She said they are to organise the girls into Village Savings Groups to strengthen their togetherness but also see sustainability of the benefits.

“We will also link them to the sub-counties to further link them to various government programs like the Youth Livelihood Fund, Emyooga, and Parish Development Model among others,” she explained.

She further said under the program, they are strengthening community-based protection mechanisms looking at how they can support a young girl not to conceive when still young.

Ajok noted that the district education and health offices reach out to communities with information about sexual reproductive health focusing on menstrual hygiene for schools and gender-based violence handling among others.

“We also train community structure where there are model men who learn and spread information on how to have a healthy relationship.”

As one of the activities to mark the 16 days of activism, the training teen mothers received startup kits worth sh100m at a function that was organized at the Namutumba district headquarters on Tuesday.

In each one’s kit was a sewing machine, its assortments and fabrics to help them in their schooling as well as come up with products that they can sell to earn a living.