KALI EMBARKS ON MENTORING AS A WAY TO SAVE THE GIRL CHILD

Despite the efforts of government and Non government agencies to up lift the girl child, girl child education has still suffered some challenges which has led to fewer girls completing the primary level of education (primary school enrolment trends).  Most of the girls lack career guidance, sex education, and life skills which result into tremendous numbers of drop outs, early marriages and early parenthood. The rate at which they are defiled is very alarming! KALI receives at least 2 cases of defilement per week which is worrying the community at large.

This is therefore the reason why KALI is doing an intensive mobilization of communities and doing mentoring in schools to impart life skills to the girls so as to increase the number of girls completing at least the primary school level. During our visit to Kisolholho primary school, girls revealed that male teachers harass them sexually. That some teachers promise some girls in P7 help during the Primary leaving exams while P6 girls are promised promotion to the next class even without considering their academic performance. This generally kills the whole system because children relax and do not concentrate in class. Does this mean that girls are weaker academically compared to their male counterparts? The answer is no because we have got successful women from the same back gound, but the fact is that they are vulnerable at all times.

Can you just imagine that in Kiyonga and Muhindi primary schools girls do not even feel ashamed to say that they do have “boyfriends at that early age-13 to17 years?” They told us this during our visit to their school for mentoring programme to celebrate the day of the girl child. They said that, the main reason is that these boyfriends give them money- between 1000-5000 which they use to buy necessities like disposable pads, knickers, and cosmetics and so on and you can imagine dreams being shuttered because of just 5000 Ugandan shillings!

We found out that parents do not talk to their children about sex education because they tend to ‘fear’ or are shy to speak about this topic or even do not even mind about them. Some senior women teachers also do not mind about the girls’ welfare. Some of these girls just lack the confidence to say NO to sex.

So dear comrades, let us promote the slogan TRUE LOVE WAITS in the schools to instill abstinence and let us keep closer to them both at school and home to support government initiatives of supporting the girl child.

Any drop out should be encouraged to go back to school and complete school because when you educate a woman you educate a Nation compared to males who are family oriented. 
BY
MASIKA SCOVIA
PROGRAMME OFFICER at KALI