By Chisomo Phiri
The Ministry of Youth and Sports says it has started a project called Action for teen Mothers and Adolescent Girls aims at contributing to the improvement of sexual and reproductive health and rights of teen Mothers and Adolescent girls in Dedza and Mchinji districts.
The Ministry says through the project the government of Malawi aims to empowering teen mothers and adolescent girls to make informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive health and rights, engage communities to contribute to the fulfillment to the adolescent girls sexual and reproductive health and rights, and enhancing access for adolescent girls to integrated youth friendly, sexual and reproductive health services including family planning and Gender-Based Violences ( GBV) services.
In his words, Minister of Youth and Sports Ulemu Msungama says it remains a well known fact that Malawi has highest rate of teenage pregnancies and child marriages, saying now the project will help solving the challenge.
He said says the project represent one of the important interventions that government, under the leadership of President Lazarus Chakwera and its partners are embarking on to address Gender Based Violence, teenage pregnancies and child in marriages, specifically in these two districts of Mchinji and Dedza where the cases are on high.
” This is one of the most important projects the government of Chakwera is implementing. We have so many good projects to embark on towards improving the sexual and reproductive health and rights of teen mothers and adolescent girls in the country,” says Msungama.
The project is being implemented with the financial support from the Korean Government through the Korea International Cooperation Agency ( KOICA) and UNFPA, to the tune US$6.6 million, equivalent of MK5 billion.
