This year, UNFPA is joining The New Vision Publications to recognize such individuals, particularly women who have made remarkable social, cultural or economic contribution in their communities. This time around, the Woman Achiever Awards, organized by the New Vision every year for the last nine years, will recognize efforts to prevent teenage pregnancy.
As such, New Vision and UNFPA have put out a call in the media inviting the public to nominate women who have worked to prevent teenage pregnancy through education; have initiated policies or projects to promote girl child education; or have gone out of their way to ensure that girls who have dropped out of school go back to attain formal or informal education.
Teenage pregnancy is one of the most devastating reproductive health challenges, and has consequences not only for the individual girl but also for the community and the country. In Uganda, one in four girls aged between 15 and 19 is either pregnant or has had a baby, (UDHS, 2011). Teenage pregnancy also contributes to 30% of school dropouts (AODI/UNICEF Survey, 2011), limiting possibilities of a girl to explore her full potential.
"By covering stories of women who have done something to help girls keep in school or who are in dire need during and after pregnancy, it will not only give a push to the nominees to even do more, it will also inspire others to take action to prevent or mitigate the effects of teenage pregnancy," says UNFPA Country Representative, Ms. Esperance Fundira.
This is not the first time that UNFPA is partnering with New Vision on this kind of project. In 2011, UNFPA supported the Woman Achiever Awards under the theme: ‘Women on the Maternal Health Frontline'. Stories of women who contributed in the field of maternal heath were profiled in the New Vision and those who were nominated by an independent panel as most compelling received awards during a public ceremony.
For UNFPA, this is part of a bigger multi-media campaign that intends to engage policy makers, communities, families and schools in a dialogue and to inspire action to prevent and mitigate the effects of teenage pregnancy.
Teenagers in Rwamwanja Refugee Camp clad in their t-shirts reading ‘Let girls be girls!'
