Youth Parliament of the Simon Diedong University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS) with funding from Plan Ghana has held a policy dialogue with stakeholders in Jirapa with the theme; supporting Teenage Mother's to go back to school.
The dialogue brought together youth groups and clubs, Teenage Mothers, Jirapa Municipal director of GES, Manager and staff of Plan Ghana, director and staff of NCCE Jirapa, The Municipal Girl child coordinator GES Jirapa, civil society organization, the chiefs and the media.
The main objective of the policy dialogue was to enlighten the stakeholders to have a clear understating of the dynamics that underpin the teenage pregnancy issue and provide opportunity for stakeholders to renew their commitment to reducing teenage pregnancies at the district level.
The Patron, Youth Parliament who also doubles as the convener of the policy dialogue said, 386 cases of teenage pregnancies were reported over the last five years with ages below 14 years while 17, 839 were between the ages of 15 to 19 years.
He noted that teenage pregnancy trends in the Region have only declined marginally since the year 2016 despite the massive interventions going on by government, development partners and civil society organizations to help reduce the trend significantly.
With Statistics from the Ghana health service, Dr. Adams hinted that, 13 teenage pregnancies are recorded in every one hour with a total of 110,000 cases in the year 2020. He added that, teenage pregnancy remains a big challenge and the statistics is very alarming.
The Municipal Girls education officer GES Jirapa, Madam Sophia S.K. Jakpa point out that per the in school statistics recorded by her department shows that, 46 girls in primary six (6) to JHS (3) got pregnant in Jirapa during the COVID - 19 break between the Month of March to May 2021. According to her, seven out of the 46 (7) delivered and went back to school.
MR. Eric Ayaba the Manager, plan Ghana, Upper west Region, stated that the mandate of Plan Ghana is seeks to improve the welfare of children and empower them to be able to demand accountability from duty bearers.
He also encourages parents and guardians to do more reproductive health education and let them understand what is involve in sexual reproductive health.
The Manager, plan Ghana also mentioned that Plan Ghana is much interested in educating the Girl child to understand her sexual life which they think will help the girl child go to school, and be able to also stay in school.
Some stakeholders who shared their thought with Info Radio after the dialogue also encourage parents to take good care of the Girl child to be responsible in future.