WOSSO Fellowship

It has been a year since WOSSO gave me a platform to highlight the challenges faced by adolescent mothers in my community. What began as a simple idea has transformed into a powerful advocacy effort, giving me a voice.

Initially we wanted to just pay the fees of some adolescent girls in schools with the grants money and stay. However, a worry came up that what impact would we be creating in the community. We dived into advocating to transform stigma to support.

In the field, I have witnessed heartbreaking stories that reveal the harsh realities that young mothers endure. Some confide in me, saying things like, "They say it's my fault," "I deserved it; after all, I was jumping from one boyfriend to another," "I was half-naked," "He is your uncle; you can't report it," or "You are just 12; you will have an abortion." When they attend school, the situation often worsens. Peers mock, shame, and stigmatize them, while teachers may reprimand them, saying, "You cannot chew gum in my class," unaware that it might be a way for the students to cope with ptyalism.

School administrators threaten to dismiss anyone who becomes pregnant while enrolled, despite the Ministerial Guidelines of 2022 mandating that both private and public schools should retain pregnant girls. The troubling question is: how many schools actually adhere to this in private institutions? The numbers are concerning.

Many young mothers drop out of school, believing it might protect them, only to face labeling and condemnation from the community as "bad seeds."

During discussions with some of these mothers, they expressed, "These are things we were never taught; how can we teach our children what we don’t know?" This highlights a cycle of continuous silence across generations.

While various factors contribute to teenage pregnancies in schools and communities, we found that the lack of sexual health education is the most significant issue.

This raises several important questions:

- Are educators trained to accommodate pregnant girls in school?

- Are there systems in place for their reintegration after pregnancy?

- Are there penalties for schools that silently or publicly dismiss these students?

- Why are only girls being targeted for stigma?

- Who is responsible for educating them about sexual health?

These questions require urgent attention to create a supportive environment for young mothers. It is high time we shift the narrative from blame to understanding, from exclusion to inclusion, and from pointing fingers to offering support.

We are in a second phase of this project and are in need of financial assistance that will go straight to paying of some urgent school fees for some who are in die need. Our focus school is Government Bilingual High School Bamendankwe.

Our work is hard but our passion and dedication to this work is fulfilling.