WHY WE NEED SEXUAL HEALTH EDUCATION
A key component of our Develop with Dignity program is working with the community to bring sexual & reproductive health education, including menstrual health, into the classroom.
Comprehensive sexual & reproductive health education is often overlooked or dismissed – with the belief that young people will learn what they need to from home, or from friends.
However, research shows that Ugandan parents frequently outsource this vital educational role to extended family members who often repeat culturally held beliefs and traditional stories rather than provide evidence-based, accurate information. In Sierra Leone, the topic is often avoided altogether.
Our model of training has been developed over several years as one strand of our holistic approach to ending period poverty and removing barriers to education.
Teacher Training
“This was my first time to attend such a training and it has actually impacted my life. I’ve been fearing to talk some of those things, menstruation and so forth. In our culture we fear to talk about such things. It is something that has been held as secret.”
Solstene, Senior Male Teacher
“The children will now enjoy the way we are going to be teaching, because now we have knowledge, we are not guessing.”
Ekurau John Michael, Senior Male Teacher
The Teso region consistently records the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in Uganda, with 73% of primary schools recording teenage pregnancies within their enrolment in 2021. Yet by 2020, after five years of the Develop with Dignity programme, Kumi attained the lowest rate of teenage pregnancy in the region.
Teacher Training
“The training has been so nice, so interesting, the facilitators were very lively, everything was so participatory, and the myths have been disqualified and facts have gotten to the mind”
Aranit Stella, Senior Woman Teacher
“Girls especially have been intimidated, they are vulnerable, they conceive without knowledge, they conceive because they are not taught.”
Robinah Etiang, Project Leader Seeds of Hope
Tackling misinformation
An essential part of the program is challenging those harmful normal beliefs and practices that often restrict girls and women participating within society.
“When you look at menstruation, there are beliefs we have been having that girls should not go to church, girls should not cross gardens [fields] when they are menstruating because they will actually bewitch the garden…
And also in Teso, when you leave very early in the morning and you meet with someone who is menstruating, they say you are unlucky, what you going to do in the day may not be successful.
Those are some of the myths that have been washed out of my mind by Teams4U Uganda.”
Solstene, Senior Male Teacher
The issue of contraception
Studies and observations in the district have recorded 63% of adults believed contraception was harmful and 30% of them believed contraception caused cancer.
Our training program has had many positive results and has extended to other community-based organisations and NGOs, alongside engaging with local leaders, the religious community, and local government. We hope our program can be utilised widely and support many more educators to adopt comprehensive sexual reproductive health education into their standard practice.
My culture believes that family planning causes cancer, family planning causes infertility… but I have learnt that family planning doesn’t cause cancer, neither does it cause infertility, but instead it helps an individual to raise a manageable family.
The training I’ve gotten from Teams4U, for the last three days, has been the best. I have been teaching about reproductive health, but there were so many things I didn’t know. Now I have been given even better knowledge.
For example, I have thought that contraceptives caused infertility, and that girls should not cross the garden, or walk though a crop of peanuts, whilst on their menstruation, but these things have been clarified today. I am excited to go back into my community, and our outreaches in villages and schools, with the best knowledge.
addressing gender-based violence
We work in schools and communities to change the culture around gender-based violence.
- We teach children their rights and responsibilities and who they can turn to for help.
- We talk to parents about how they can keep their children safe.
- We speak to teachers and community leaders about how they can support victims and the importance of holding perpetrators to account.
- We give women a platform to expose and challenge the status quo and voice what they want their community to be like.
