Supporting Adolescent Mothers' Education in Zambia

To all our donors and to GlobalGiving:

Thank you for your generosity and kindness! With your support, we have so far sent back and/or retained in school 21 Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) in6districts in Zambia who were at risk of dropping out of school because of teenage pregnancy, child marriage, poverty, or disease, particularly HIV.

 We also give gratitude to the generosity of the American people and the U.S. Department of State, American Embassy in Zambia and the Leonna B. and Helmsley Trust who have been supporting us to build resilient community health systems and platforms through which we are identifying the AGYW and giving them comprehensive support to address the socioeconomic determinants of health.

Here is a snapshot of the AGYW:

AGYW A is a smart and determined 16-year-old girl whose story is one of resilience and hope. She lives in an impoverished and underserved remote village of Mayuwa in Mumbwa District. She faced a life changing challenge in 2025 when she was 15 years of age and in seventh grade. She fell pregnant. With determination and resilience, she refused to let the teenage pregnancy define her future. She did not let the pregnancy deter her from writing her final primary school certificate exams. At seven months pregnant, she wrote the exams. She achieved very good results. She lives with her parents, but the family lives in extreme poverty, with zeroincome. The parents cannot provide basic needs for their family. Despite these challenges, She has held on tight to her dreams of completing high school, going to college, and hopefully breaking the generational cycle of poverty. With the donation, she will be enrolled in high school, and she will be supported by a Community Case Worker who will provide ongoing counseling, a supporting relationship and will link the household to identified local Government Social Protection and Livelihood resources. She aspires to dedicate her life to helping other young girls who find themselves in similar situations.

AGYW B is an adolescent mother Living with HIV, and 16 years of age.  She lives in Chisempela Community in Chibombo District. She was enrolled in junior high school, until the ninth grade in July 2025 when she dropped out of school due to pregnancy sickness. She was known by her teachers and peers as an intelligent, focused, and promising student with strong academic potential. She fell pregnant while in school and dropped out during the first trimester. She gave birth in January 2026. She met the father of her baby when he was temporarily in her community for agriculture apprenticeship. He has since cut ties with her.

In one of her “Under-Five” clinic visits to Liteta Hospital, and as part of the PCZ ECAP programs to link Pregnant and Breastfeeding AGYW to life saving services, her and her infant were tested for HIV. She tested HIV-positive and the infant HIV-negative. The infant was determined to be an HIV Exposed infant who needed to continue receiving prophylactic services so that she did not acquire HIV through breastmilk. Her and her infant were immediately enrolled in the Liteta Hospital Prevention of Mother to Child (PMTCT) HIV program and the PCZ ECAP Community PMTCT program through which the infant is receiving Antiretroviral (ARV) drugs prophylaxis to prevent Mother to Child Transmission of HIV through breastmilk.  The ECAP Case workers are ensuring she remains virally suppressed through adherence counseling and escorting her to access viral load testing whenever she is due. The Case Workers are also supporting her to ensure the infant is adhering to prophylactic drugs and scheduled HIV testing services.

As a high performing student, she does not want her HIV status nor her status of being a teen mother to deter her from completing high school. With the donation, she will be re-enrolled in high school and ECAP Case Workers will continue supporting her in the ECAP Community PMTCT Program until the child is deemed HIV-free at the cessation of breastfeeding.   

AGYW C is a 14-year-old girl, orphan, living in Bwacha community in Kabwe District. She contracted HIV perinatally, at birth. Her mother died of HIV when she was still a child. Her father abandoned her in 2017 when she was 5 years old. Her aunt assumed foster care responsibilities for her. But she depended on one meager income from selling vegetables from her backyard. She dropped out of school in sixth grade in 2024.

For her, life had become unbearable. She found comfort in the relationship she had built with the ECAP II Case Worker responsible for her household. Her Case Worker ensured she always had access to HIV treatment and stayed on the program, and she adhered to treatment to ensure HIV viral load suppression. The Case Worker also worked hard to link Her and her household to other socioeconomic programs available in their community. She also searched for her school support. Thanks to the GlobalGiving-facilitated donors, She will be re enrolled in school! Her hope for a better future has been rekindled, and it is evidenced in her smile!

AGYW D is a 20-year-old young woman, and she is a mother of a 1-year-old baby. She lost her mother when she was 1 year 6 months old and was raised by her mother’s elder sister, who also passed away in July 2025. Following the death of her guardian, she faced extreme poverty and her last option was to engage in transactional sex as a survival strategy. She dropped out of school, when she was in the final year of high school in 12^th grade in 2025 after finding out she was pregnant. We found her and enrolled her in the ECAP program in January 2026 because of all the socioeconomic and HIV risk vulnerabilities she faced.

Her baby was born prematurely and has been battling all sorts of childhood illnesses from the time she was born, mainly because of her impoverished status. Currently, the baby has moderate acute malnutrition, and she is severely underweight. The ECAP Case Worker assigned to her household has linked her and the baby to maternal and child health services, including therapeutic feeding to address acute malnutrition. With the donation, through GlobalGiving, she is also going back to school to complete her high school!

AGYW E is a 14-year-old girl who lives with her mother, a marketeer, in Kawama community in Kabwe District. She was progressing very well in school, and she was very excited when she passed her final primary school exams to progress to high school in 2025. Unfortunately, and as fate would have it, she learnt she was pregnant just as she learnt of her qualification for high school.

She gave birth in September 2025 and has not gone back to school because her mother is barely managing to provide basic needs for both her and her baby on her single and meager income as a marketeer.

When we identified her in late 2025, she was determined to go back to school. As evidenced by her primary school certificate results, she was a smart student. Thanks to our donors, her dream of going to high school has come true!

AGYW F is 20 years of age and a young woman Living with HIV. She lives with her ailing grandparents in Linda Compound, Nansanzu ward in Livingstone District. In November 2025, she found out she was pregnant. She dropped out of school and eloped into marriage with her boyfriend. However, when the ECAP II program identified her and enrolled her into the program, she had not disclosed her HIV status to her “husband”. She stopped adhering to treatment as prescribed for fear of her “husband” finding out about her HIV status. Consequently, she had very high HIV viral load and was persistently ill.   After building trust and a strong bond with an ECAP II Case Worker assigned to her household and after several counselling sessions that also included her grandparents, Chola was withdrawn from marriage and attempts began to re-enroll her in school. Thanks to our donors, Chola is going back to school. As of January 2026, she was also virally suppressed!

Links:

• Visit the PCZ website

• PCZ_Global_Giving_Report_March_2026.pdf (PDF)