Government in partnership with the United Nations will today launch the Education Plus Initiative, a move aimed at accelerating actions among adolescent girls, young women and boys to act as agents of change to prevent HIV and reduce teenage pregnancy.
The initiative will help to fight early marriages, gender-based violence with access to and completion of secondary school education as an entry point.
According to Ketty Lamaro, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Sports, the launch will be presided over by the First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Kataaha Museveni at Mengo Senior School.
The Education Plus Initiative is convened by five UN agencies such as UNAIDS, UNFPA, UN WOMEN, UNICEF and UNESCO.
In a statement Lamaro, said the high risk of acquiring HIV is just one of the many threats adolescent girls and young women face to their health, safety, dignity, and life aspirations.
While women and girls are biologically more susceptible to HIV than men and boys, Lamaro said unequal gender power dynamics and harmful gender norms are the root cause, compounded by intersecting forms of discrimination.
"Keeping girls in secondary school is crucial. A right in and of itself, and a means to protect girls against HIV infection. Greater gains have been made in reducing new HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women in countries that have higher completion rates for lower secondary school," said Lamaro.
She said the Education Plus Initiative is a multi- sectoral initiative that brings together ministries of Education and Sports, Health, Gender Labour and Social Development, Local Government and other MDAs to focus on essential elements of what every adolescent girl and young woman is entitled to for effectively transitioning to adulthood.
"The Initiative will in the first five years target adolescent girls and young women in the sub regions and districts that registered the highest number of teenage pregnancies in 2021. These include Busoga, Bunyoro, Lango, Tooro and West Nile," said Lamaro.
