Project Name: Prevention and Response to Teenage Pregnancy Through life skills, Income, and formal Education Re- entry (PRETTIER) Project.
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.