By Julia Hagedorn | Volunteer Midwife
Tuesday, February 25th was an exciting day for the girls at the New Life Secondary School in Luwero District, Uganda. That day two midwifes from Shanti came to the school to teach more than 70 girls aged 17 to 19 about healthy relationships, HIV and family planning.
During the lesson, more and more girls came into the classroom – a very basic room with a board and some wooden school benches to sit on. On their faces you could see huge smiles and big expectations. One of the most important topics in that age are healthy relationships. What matters in a relationship? How can I protect myself from rape and abuse? Is it my fault and a man’s right if he is doing it to me? What are the risks of early pregnancy and unsafe abortion?
The girls were engaged and eager to learn. They made some notes in their books and were really interested. The girls learned about HIV transmission and how to protect themselves. The male teacher was asked to leave the room after the girls requested to talk about that “girls stuff” alone. While one of the midwives was demonstrating how to use a condom, you could barely stand the noise and the hard laugh of the girls.
In the end the girls had the chance to ask all of their questions so that they could go back to their daily life with some new skills and knowledge. Empowering and educating girls in a country like Uganda where women’s rights are still a challenging issue is the key to creating change! Let us keep on working together to create something great in the life of those girls!
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