Our Blog

Service Yezu Mwiza in partnership with GIZ/Health is conducting a project to support the promotion of sexual health among adolescents and youth through 10 socio-community networks in Muramvya province. As part of this project, SYM has supported the organization of interschool competitions on sexual and reproductive health and rights through these socio-community networks.

School principals and facilitators had encouraged their students, both girls and boys, to participate and prepare different artistic acts (short theatrical plays, songs or poems) conveying messages about the knowledge acquired from the sessions on sexual and reproductive education.
Many groups presented short theatrical plays with key messages, calling on young people to shun all those things that would lead them into bad habits of alcoholism or debauchery. Arlette ININAHAZWE, one of the contestants, from the BUYAGA technical school told us: “In previous years, many young teenage girls like me, were pregnant while still in school. The main cause was that boys lied to us by giving us gifts especially Android phones which are expensive; and we, not being able to get them, gave ourselves to sex in exchange for these goods; welcome unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STI). Fearful of being rejected by their parents, they risked abortion. Unfortunately, this often leads to the worst, including infections of the sexual tract and even removal of the uterus, and sometimes the victim can lose her life. That’s generally what my group has been acting out. However, from the lessons I learned at health clubs, I was able to know myself, my sexuality, the consequences I was facing with a pregnancy at my young age and all the STIs there.”

The facilitators had put their hearts and souls into supervising the preparations of these young adolescents and they in turn welcomed this approach to interschool competitions: “These competitions are a way to evaluate the knowledge acquired by our students on sexual and reproductive health. Indeed, young adolescents in our schools need correct and complete information on sexual and reproductive health and rights. Often, in their families, parents do not talk to them about sexuality, as it is considered a taboo subject. This leads to sexual delinquency because being abandoned to themselves, with a growing sexual curiosity and changing bodies, they indulge in total debauchery and hello unwanted pregnancies. Thanks to these artistic numbers, the spectator students who had not participated in these health clubs during the past year, will be interested in following the training next school year,”said Ms. Alphonsine NIBIGIRA, animator at BUKEYE high school.

These competitions were attended by a very enthusiastic and attentive audience. After the evaluation by the jury, the groups with the best artistic creations received incentive prizes, there were prizes awarded to the schools in the first three positions and prizes for each student who participated in the competition.
According to Juvénal NDAYISABA, the CDE of Mbuye, the prizes awarded will be very useful: “These balls that you have just offered us, he said, will help us in the mobilization of the young people in vacations, for friendly games, and it will also be an opportunity to share, to remind them about sexual health, because holidays are sometimes an occasion for perdition in debauchery.”
“Unwanted pregnancies in schools are a reality in the commune of Mbuye. During the school year 2020/2021, 4 cases of pregnancies have been recorded in our communal district. A pregnant student is a loss, not only for herself, but also a loss for her family and the nation, which keep investing in her. Dear young girls, continue to avoid those sweet words, those poisoned gifts that malicious men offer you. Be content with what your parents give you, that is enough. As for sexual relations, refrain from them, the right moment, being an adult, will arrive” he concluded.

It is worth noting that school pregnancies have steadily decreased in Muramvya province from 12 students to 4 students in the past school year, thanks to these trainings on sexual and reproductive health and rights.