Delay Marriage Promote Schooling for Ugandan Girls

Information, Communication and Education (ICE) materials cannot be ignored in advocacy campaigns to delay marriage and promote schooling for boys in Uganda.

In our operations in Western Uganda, we decided to embrace the production of ICE materials to inform people of the region about what we do and cause topics of discussion on ways to recast perceptions on a girl child in communities they live.

The materials printed included; 100 caps, 100 brochures, 3 banners, 2 pull up banners, 1000 posters and 50 boxes of pens. Calendars (100), Stickers (1,000) and T-shirts (200) have been printed in the in addition to those earlier printed.

Joy For Children Uganda has been printing and distributing Information, Education, Communication (I.E.Cs) materials to schools, parents and leaders at district, sub county and zone levels.

We are grateful to all our dear donors for the financial support that that has made us have a big impact on the people of Western Uganda. We target to print and distribute more 100 brochures, 1000posters, 1000 calendars and 300 t-shirts from June to December, 2019.

Together, we shall end child marriage in Uganda.

Given the African culture, child upbringing is the community’s resposibility. Joy for Children Uganda  conducts  community dialogues in initiative to Delay Marriage and Promote Schooling for Gilrls and boys.

Dialogues comprise 20-40 community members held at lower community levels and local governments. During the dialogues, participants are given a platform to discuss  the drivers of child marriage in their communities and the interventions they think will or can work to end the vice.  We also discuss the impact child marriage had on the  girls, family and community at large.

The participants targeted for community dialogues include but not limited to; Local Council (LC) 1 chairpersons, members of Child Protection Committee (CPC), Village Health Teams (VHTs), Para Social Workers (PSW), Family and Protection Officer, Teachers, Health Workers, Church and Opinion Leaders, Police Officers, students and community members

The objective of community dialogues is to create a platform where communities directly participate in identifying the problems they face and also be part of the solution. The dialogues also enable the community to access information and openly discuss a wide range of issues affecting girls in their community, and develop solutions to the problems discussed. The outcome of these dialogues empower communities with more knowledge and skills necessary in decision and problem solving processes to benefit not only the girls but also the boys.

Through continued engagement of the communities through dialogues, the following strategies have been embraced as means of strengthening the campaign to end child marriage in Uganda:

The local leaders take lead in using different platforms like burials, parties and leaders’ meetings to sensitise masses on early marriage.  

Local leaders make plans for village meetings to sensitize parents and children about the impact of child marriage and what they can do to prevent them.  

Religious leaders are tasked to integrate matters of delaying marriage and promoting schooling for girls and boys in their sermons since churches are soft grounds for passing on information.

Parents are tasked to be friendly to their adolescent girls so as to encourage them freely share the challenges they face daily.

Every member of the community is tasked be responsible enough to always identify a problem, give the necessary advice, guide, and report, refer and follow up cases at police stations as one of the effective ways to end child marriages and teenage pregnancies.