Gov’t to roll out regional health project

Government, through the Ministry of Health, is set to start operationalising the East African Community project aimed at advocating for the fight against HIV as well as adolescence, among the youth.Dubbed “Invest in Adolescents Building Advocacy capacity in east African community”, the project is apparently already operational in other member states. According to government officials, it is will be rolled out in three weeks.It is reported that key reproductive health indicators, such as maternal mortality, HIV infection rates, fertility rates and unmet need for contraception reveal a troubling situation in the region, particularly among young people. Dr. Diane Mutamba, the coordinator of Adolescent sexual reproduction desk in the ministry, stressed the need to use civil society organisations to sensitise the youth on sexual intercourse matters nationally to help reduce the problem of HIV related diseases.“We discovered that our civil society organisations that deal in health lack adequate knowledge on sexual matters like use of condoms and other related sexual issues and what we need is to empower them with knowledge to manage and sensitise our youth.”Though she did not disclose the number of organisations and how much it would cost, she emphasised that it was a good initiative for the region.“We shall be providing youth corners in health centres to sensitise the youth on sexual issues especially focusing on those in villages.”The project empowers youth to communicate their needs to decision-makers and supports adolescent-serving civil society organisations (CSOs) to ensure that programmes, policies and budgets reflect their needs.According to Mutamba, Rwandan youth are sexually active at 17 years for boys and 16 for girls. At least, 2.7 per cent of girls in the country are said to have sex by the age of 15.During her weekly discussion on social networking site, Tweeter, Health Minister Dr. Agnes Binagwaho confirmed that 4.7 per cent of all pregnancies are among women under the age of 20, which she termed as dangerous.Dr. Binagwaho further mentioned that it was essential for all partners, including parents, media, and teachers to be straightforward and edify the children on sexual matters to help reduce on the number of unwanted pregnancies and HIV related diseases.Joyce Babirye, a mother, observed that some parents are adamant to discuss sexual related matters with their children due to cultural background, emphasising the need for parents to openly converse with their children.“During our time, it was either your aunt or elder sister (to offer advice) because it was generally seen as a taboo but today, I don’t see why I would not tell my child about the repercussions of having sex at an early age,” she pointed out.She said she would offer sex education to her eight-year-old daughter when she turns eleven. The project will also support continuous peer learning among CSOs and facilitate continued networking to ensure sharing and collaboration. Youth will be trained and supported via a mentorship programme and national networks of champions allowing follow-up, collaboration and exchange.According to statistics from AVERT international, an HIV/Aids charity organisation based in the UK, Sub-Saharan Africa is more heavily affected by HIV and Aids than any other region of the world. An estimated 22.9 million people are living with HIV in the region - around two thirds of the global total.In 2010, around 1.2 million people died from Aids in sub-Saharan Africa while 1.9 million people were infected with HIV.Since the beginning of the epidemic, 14.8 million children have lost one or both parents to HIV/Aids.

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Gov’t to roll out regional health project