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The situation of unwanted pregnancies in both schools and in community is one of the health challenges faced by young girls. These early pregnancies that are at risk undermine the health of young people and cause them to be ejected from the school system and therefore see development opportunities slip through their fingers.

The identification of young unmarried mothers, carried out in March 2019 by GIZ with technical support of partners such as Service Yezu Mwiza, FVS and Nturengaho in collaboration with the provincial board of health (PBH) and District Health Bureau (DHB) in the provinces of Muramvya, Gitega and Mwaro has shown that, out of 3,579 cases in the areas of responsibility of the 29 health care cantre (HCC), 47.82% had their pregnancies before the age of 25

It is in that context that Service Yezu Mwiza, in collaboration with GIZ/Health through the SRHR project, organized training for young unmarried mothers chosen as leaders in the 10 HCC in province of Muramvya, with the aim of supporting the structuring of their groups to enable them to integrate into socio-community networks.
This will allow them to have a framework of influence and advocacy on youth issues but also contribute to the education of other young people through testimonies of their experiences. They will therefore be able to become actors of change to reduce unwanted pregnancies in the community in complementarity with other facilitators.
Training of young single mothers at Teza HCC Service Yezu Mwiza supports a community-based social networking approach to promoting youth and youth health. In collaboration with PBH and Muramvya DHB, SYM would like to strengthen the capacities of these young single mothers’ leaders of the 10 networks on the key themes of SRHR project as well as the communication techniques
Through these groups, the participants decided to create a savings and loan association for young single mothers with no more than one child to avoid tarnishing their image. They also committed themselves to unite their efforts to carry out collective activities by saving 1000 Burundian Franc per month for each member of this association.

Towards the end of the training some participants shared with us some touching testimonies of their experiences including one of them: "During the holidays I was in the forest with my friends looking for wood, we heard something behind the trees and we ran, a rope made me fall, and there I saw a big man I didn't know and he told me not to shout, that if I did he would strangle me. I was so scared that I couldn't even cry. When he finished doing what he wanted, I went home, and since I had no parents, I was afraid to tell my brothers, and I didn’t even go to the health care Centre in time to ask for help. When the holidays were over, I went back to school like all the other students in my grade 8 class, and one day, one morning before I went to school as usual I felt very bad in my stomach, I had to go to HCC. When I got there after a few exams, I was told that I was pregnant, the school was over for me and all my future plans with, even worse when my brothers found out, they kicked me out of the house. I went through an ordeal to give birth to this baby and today I find myself in a situation that I did not wish, with the child of an unknown father. I didn’t want any of this to happen to me but unfortunately I can’t change anything the worst happened I have to live with. As a tip, I would ask all young girls not to venture into the forest without an adult to prevent the same thing from happening to them as I did.” testifies K. Menedore

These young single mothers are committed to restoring the knowledge acquired during these training sessions and helping other girls in their community :
“As president of our association of young single mothers here at TEZA HCC, I am pleased that we have come together to work together to help other young girls through our testimonials, so they don’t fall into the same mistakes that we do. We can also, in the near future, through our savings and credit union, which we will gradually build up, think about small development activities so that we can help each other because some of us, are living in bad conditions when they have done nothing to deserve this.” Testifies Mr. Joselyne