How new model wants to contain teenage pregnancies in Western

Teenage pregnancies have continued to blight education in Bungoma County, even with concerted efforts to end them.

A programme focusing on teenagers has been unveiled to try and alleviate these problems using a new model that uses peers with specific skills to reach out to other young people.

Dubbed ‘Children and Youth Access to Comprehensive Sexuality Education’, the drive targets Webuye West and Mt Elgon sub-counties where it seeks to make use of school holidays when young people are out of school – a period when sexual escapades increase.

Speaking while launching the project last week, Albert Obbuyi, the executive director of Centre for the Study of Adolescence, said the two sub-counties were selected because of the gravity of the problem as far as young people and sexuality is concerned.

“Young people in Bungoma face challenges such as teenage pregnancies, sexual and gender-based violence and although the county is making progress, one entity cannot tackle these challenges alone. This is why we have rolled out this project in partnership with the community, education and health departments,” says Obbuyi.

The director says the approach will involve education and service delivery through the health facilities and will use a different model that will focus on young people mainly during school holidays.

Obbuyi says: “The project seeks to reach 8,000 young people directly and a further 300,000 through the media, especially radio, while the other aspect will involve use of youth-friendly centres in health facilities.”

The project will make use of rovers aged between 18 and 24 with prior training in nursing, public health, community development and social work - all sourced from the local community.

These rovers will then conduct holiday-based crash workshops on comprehensive sexuality education based on a curriculum approved by the National Aids and STI Control Programme.

“Each rover is assigned 40 students to train and mentor during April school holidays, with follow-up sessions in August and December holidays,” says Obbuyi.

The programme will also offer opportunities to nurses who have requisite training but are not in employment. Rovers will therefore act as linkages between schools, community structures and health facilities.

Real challenge

The acting Webuye County Hospital Superintendent Ferdinand Ndubi says teenage pregnancies are a real challenge in Bungoma West and this is coupled with cases of abortion, post-abortion sepsis and incomplete abortions that have to be treated at the hospital.

Ministry of Health figures show that one in seven girls aged 15 to 19 years has begun child-bearing, while Western region as a whole has 62 per cent of unmarried women engaging in sex without using condoms or other form of protection. Ndubi says most of “the victims are in primary school, and this raises eyebrows.”

He says that just about two weeks ago, two boys were convicted of sexual abuse at the Webuye Law Courts.

Nearly half of Bungoma’s population is below the age of 15. Some of the issues listed by the National Council for Population and Development affecting the youth in the region are sexually transmitted infections, including HIV and Aids, drug and substance abuse, sexual and gender-based violence and teenage pregnancies.