UNFPA launches website for teenage information
Mr Humphrey Nabimanya (standing), the founder and team leader of Reach A Hand Uganda (RAHU) speaks to the teenagers at the launch of the teenage website on Friday at United Nations Population Fund (UNFP) offices in Kololo. Photo by Joseph Kato
KAMPALA. Reach A Hand Uganda (RAHU), a youth-led organisation and UN agency UNFPA have launched a website to provide accurate information to address teenage challenges.
The website dubbed Sautiplus has sections where teenagers can access information on reproduction, sexuality and health rights, family planning and educative music.
Mr Humphrey Nabimanya, RAHU’s founder and team leader, said teenagers will also be getting instant answers on lifestyle and relationship matters.
“We have realised many teenagers have fallen into trouble because of limited and distorted information. Many parents think its evil to discuss sexual matters with their children. That is why we have created this website to provide instant and right information,” Mr Nabimanya said on Friday at the launch of the website at UNFP’s offices in Kololo, Kampala.
Dr Dairo AKinyele, UNFPA Country Representative, said the website was long overdue, saying adolescent challenges facing young people can only be overcome by providing accurate information.
“There is nothing that addresses youth issues like providing well-packaged information. For the more 30 year I have been working with the youth, there main challenge is distorted information. It is time this becomes a no more excuse,” Dr AKinyele said.
Mr Nabimanya’s worries fits into the dilemma that Deborah Kyarisiima encountered. Her friends told her she would develop fibroids if she went past 18 years without sex. At the time she was making 17 years. This inaccurate advice worried her so much that she sought enlightenment from her mother.
Rather than help her, her mother instead barked at her and warned her to stop associating with bad peers. But her mother did not provide the answers the young girl so much wanted. The friends continued telling her the same bad advice until she was tempted and got a boyfriend.
“I got a boyfriend and had my first sexual encounter two days to my Senior Four final exams. I learnt that I had become pregnant when we had completed the exams,” Kyarisiima shared with students during a recent campaign against teenage pregnancy in Mubende town.
