MADI-OKOLLO

Viola Kiden,16, at Eden Village Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement in Madi Okollo district is one of the many teenage mothers who returned to school after delivering a baby.

The return to school came at a time the West Nile region, especially refugee settlements grappled with an unprecedented number of teenage pregnancies resulting from COVID-19 where educational institutions were closed.

She was one of the beneficiaries of the Education Cannot Wait (ECW) project, which is the United Nations' global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

“Last year, I was happy that an organisation helped to support our education by recruiting caregivers and babysitters to look after our babies when we are in class. We would only come and breastfeed them when they are crying and this helped us to concentrate in class and as a result many of my friends in primary seven last year managed to pass and join secondary”, confessed Kiden Viola.

Through the project implemented by Norwegian Refugee Council with funding from UNICEF, child-friendly spaces were constructed and caregivers were recruited to look after the babies of teenage mothers who returned to school.

Kiden, who is now in P7 at Eden Primary School, said this arrangement made them concentrate in class not thinking about the wellbeing of their children while at school.

 “We are even praying that this support should continue if possible because right now, I live with my child at home with my mother-in-law and this makes me have a divided mind in class,” Kiden added.

Richard Cosmas Mabe, the lead teacher under the Accelerated Education Programme (AEP) at Eden Primary School, says the admission of the child mothers at the school is in line with the directive of the education ministry and the President that calls for enrolment of teenage mothers in schools.

According to him, this year two refugee teenage mothers are going to sit for the Primary Leaving Examination at the school under AEP but said their level of concentration has declined compared to last year when they were supported under ECW.

Senior woman teacher at Eden Primary School Asher Cecilia says they carry out routine guidance and counselling to the teenage mothers alongside the boys to understand their plight and support them instead of stigmatizing them.

Asher Cecilia, the senior Woman teacher Eden Primary School.

Cecilia says, this year there are five teenage mothers who join the school in different classes.

Swali Andama, the district sports officer of Madi-Okollo in charge of partner education projects, says the district has designed a deliberate campaign to mobilise parents to send back the child mothers to school through different platforms.

“COID-19 did a lot of havoc in the district in terms of teenage pregnancies and more so in the refugee settlement, so this campaign was necessary to save the child mothers from waiting their life and we are happy many have managed to rejoin and interventions such as ECW was handy in supporting the effort of the government to have the girls rejoin and remain in school”, Said Andama.

Andama is concerned that many girls who registered to sit for this year’s PLE across the district are already pregnant.

Dixon Odur, the media and communication co-ordinator Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) says the only way to build resilience among the victims of teenage pregnancies is by returning them to school.

He, however, says the provision of quality education to the child mothers is a responsibility of every stakeholder given the funding challenges faced by partners coupled with donor fatigue.