Project Details

Project Donor: European Union, Project Period: 2022-2023.

Project location: Zombo () and Madi-Okollo (Anyiribu and Okollo) districts

Target group and beneficiaries: The action is targeting 4,240 direct beneficiaries. In addition, 40 local authorities and 36 community-based facilitators (16 Education Mentors and 20 Animators) will benefit

Project Summary:

This project was designed through a consultative process involving three local CSOs operating in West Nile region namely RICE West Nile (the Lead applicant), PALM Corps (co-applicant) and SPACE (co-applicant), Zombo and Madi-Okollo districts (departments of community development, education, and health) and cultural leaders. Each consortium member willingly commits to the partnership and brings an established local presence, rich experience in operating similar programs and local networks to ensure effective implementation. This action builds on four projects implemented in the region by the Lead Applicant and the co-applicants.

The PRETTIER project is premised on the UPE policy and the revised guidelines by Ugandan Ministry of Education and Sport on management of school re-entry that allows teenage mothers to be readmitted back to school unconditionally after pregnancy. To prevent teenage pregnancy, all girls (and boys) should be enrolled and stay in school (Objective 1) taking advantage of UPE policy of the government of Uganda. This requires communities to be aware on rights of girls to education and the impact of teenage pregnancy & SGBV on the education of girl-child (O1.1), parents have positive attitude on girl-child education and invest in it (O1.2), and adolescent girls are empowered to be assertive and knowledgeable of SRHR (O1.3) to avoid risky sexual behaviour. So, the consortium will tackle the underlying causes of poor attitude towards girl child education (negative practices) through community awareness creation and training on better parenting skills and SRHR for adolescent girls and boys.

One of the major causes of drop-out is poverty which disempowers parents from providing necessities for their girls at school thereby exposing them to exploitation or early marriage for bride price. Poverty is equally one of the reasons, most parents torture their daughters who drop out of school because of unintended pregnancy and the reason men or boys abandon girls who conceive for them. Therefore, building resilience of drop out girls and young women require increased opportunity for gainful employment for out-of-school AGYW and boys (Objective 2). For this to be realised they should be empowered (i.e become assertive) to deal with negative community perception and make informed life choices (O2.1), have employable vocational and business skills (O2.2), are equipped with start-up kits to run IGAs, and that they and their babies have access to friendly and quality health services. Alternatively, if they choose to re-enter to complete their primary education, the opportunity should be available (O2.3).

Finally, strengthened institutional capacity of the consortium partners and local authorities (Objective 3) is a precondition for preventing and responding to teenage pregnancy. This will enable the responsible actors to work collaboratively to create a supportive environment including the ability to manage psychological and emotional violence against adolescent mothers. So, capacity building of the various actors and creating advocacy platforms to discuss systemic issues and take collection action to prevent and respond to teenage pregnancy is an essential element of the action. The theory of change is presented in the conceptual framework below.