Gender Equality Uganda Project #38693

Prevent 500 girls in Gulu from early marriage

by Child Equal Opportunity Uganda

Project Report | Dec 17, 2021
16 Days of Gender Activism

By Janani Loum | Director

As part of our work to prevent early marriages, this time we enaged more stakeholders and conducted 5 community dialogue and aareness, with specific focus on prevention of teenage preganancies.

Since the outbreak of covid-19 and subsequent lockdown and clsoure of schools, teenage prenancies became all time record high in Gulu district. These young girls now face unimaginable problems such school drop-outs, poverty and physical problems due to child birth as their bodies are not fully mature yet. Most may end up in theater as a way of helping them, which places them in danger as well.

Child Equal Opportunity Uganda together with GIZ civil peace service and other partners carried out 5 community diallogue and sensitization to interact with teenage girls about the problem and how the problem can be reduced. This happened during the 16 days of gender activism. Action plans were developed during the these events, which will be carried out for future intevention to reduce teenage preganancies.

Commitment of community tsakeholders were solicited to play key roles in their communities and report to the partners. A consortium was formed with primary work focusing on reducing teenage preganancies. This is expected to scale the drive to end teenage pregancies.

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Jul 21, 2021
Providing COVID-19 Emergency Relief Items.

By Janani Loum | Director

In the month of June, Uganda was hit with a deadly second wave of COVID-19, which saw infection rate skyrocket to 170% coupled with high mortality rate. In response, the government of Uganda moved swiftly to put measures in place to try and curb down the infection rate. Among the measures, were curfew, ban on inter-district travels, ban of public transportation of passengers, ban on boda boda passenger transportation, reduced number of workers in offices to only 20% at a time, ban on schools etc. Many businesses were also banned for fear that they may aid the spread of the virus. However, as much as the ban is welcomed as a mean to curb down infection, the negative effects of these measures have been far reaching and as devastating as the virus itself. Many people who live from hands to mouth are reeling from the effects of these lockdown measures with a number of people reportedly dying from starvation. Domestic violence is on the increase as family bread winners, currently out of work, turns on each other. Children from vulnerable families are getting more malnourished rendering them to danger of developing diseases due to weakened immunity. Many families cannot afford medical care for their members and this has been worsened by the fact that many of the public health facilities right now are feared to be hotspots for corona virus infections. In most public health facilities, capacities of health workers are being utilized to fight against corona virus, leaving living little attention to other diseases.

CEOU have shifted attention to responding to the negative effects of COVID-19 control measures put in place by the government Uganda. Currently we are providing emergency food relief items to the most vulnerable households in the community, including households of the teenage girls, currently enrolled in our initial program - (Prevention of Teenage Pregnancy). We are currently distributing 500kg of beans, 750kg of maize flour and 50 litters of cooking oil. We hope to reach more households with this support but all will be dependeant on securing emergency relief funds.

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Mar 19, 2021
Changes in Approach due to COVI-19

By Janani | Director

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