YOUNG PEOPLE TODAY
CAMPAIGN REPORT MAY TO DECEMBER 2014
Introduction Reach A Hand, Uganda is a youth-led organization that aims to address key issues that leave Ugandan youth vulnerable to health outcomes like HIV, Sexual Transmitted Infections and unintended pregnancies. Our work focuses on changing social norms and values that limit access to accurate and comprehensive Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) Services and Information by designing effective communication strategies and campaigns to create awareness and mitigate these sexual health problems among the young people today.
The Project is being implemented under the following objectives:
Objective 1. To reach at least 60,000 young people in Uganda with information on available youth friendly services through social media including Facebook, twitter and website by December 31st 2014.
Our Vision:
Expected outcome 1;
Young people making informed choices in life
increased number of youth with knowledge on available youth friendly sexual reproductive health (SRHR) services and increased HIV knowledge, increased intention to use condoms, abstinence from sex, lower stigma towards HIV and reduced discrimination towards people living with HIV.
Our Mission: To empower young people in Uganda aged 12-24 years with complete information, skills and tools which enable them live a healthy, focused and productive life. RAHU in Partnership with UNESCO are implementing the “Young People Today, Time to Act Now� campaign that is aimed at realizing comprehensive sexuality education and youth friendly services for adolescents and young people and to bridge the generation gap through encouraging dialogue between young people and adults/policy makers to tackle traditional and cultural practices, beliefs and negative attitudes limiting adolescents from utilizing reproductive health services and denying them from enjoying their rights.
Activities: Reach A Hand Embarked on using social media as a tool to reaching out to young people with information on Sexual Reproductive Health because of the increasing numbers of young people using social media in Uganda. RAHU operates various social media platforms i.e. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and two websites. RAHU Platforms boost over 60,000 followers of which 50% are between the age of 18 to 25 years of age. RAHU has promoted the Young People Today Campaign on its Facebook pages and Twitter pages and Websites.
ACTIVITIES
1. Young People Today Tweetup (#yptcampiagn):
O
n the 18th November 2014 a Tweetup was organised at the UNAIDS Boardroom. The Tweetup was an opportunity for social media influencers in Uganda to meet in real life and convert 140 character engagements or conversations into actual lengthy exchanges about the ESA Ministerial Commitment and its trends in Uganda. The Tweetup was also aimed at creating awareness for the young people today campaign on social media. The
During the Tweetup, the most prominent key words were young people, education, health, sex, sexuality today and HIV.These are some of the keywords in the ESA Commitment.
Tweetup comprised of 20 Social Media Influencers most of them between the ages of 20 to 30 years. The Ministry of Education and UNESCO Uganda Office were fully represented. There were 130 users of the hashtag #YPTCampaign on twitter and these shared 804 posts that reached 138,218 people and these created 1,024,548 impressions of people reached on twitter during the presentations.
The Tweetup was also aimed at creating awareness for the young people today campaign on social media. The Tweetup comprised of 20 Social Media Influencers most of them between the ages of 20 to 30 years. The Ministry of Education and UNESCO Uganda Office were fully represented.
2. E-Newsletters
To facilitate dialogue and feed-back from our network including students, partners, and local leaders. And to provide a means for direct communication with them, Reach A Hand sends out three e-newsletters each month to our ever growing database of over 2,000 subscribers. Under this platform we were able to send out e-newsletters with content about the Intergenerational Dialogue and Young People Today Campaign.
3. Street Casts Young People (RAHU Peer educators) have been trained as street casters who have conducted interviews on the streets of Kampala on issues of access to youth friendly services and Sex Education with Parents and at School,. So far 6 Street Casts have been carried out in the streets of Kansanga, Kisenyi and Makindye. These are being used as advocacy mediums for access of youth friendly services and comprehensive sexuality education. The Short video clips are uploaded on the RAHU YouTube channel and also shared on the sautiplus.org website page. These have also been broadcasted on the Mix Up Show on NBS TV every Sunday.
ACTIVITIES
Television Shows Done Among other activities Reach A hand has been doing to promote the Young people today campaign are TV shows and we have so far had 6 tv shows on different leading television stations in Uganda
Objective 2: To actively engage actors from Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education and Parliament to ensure policies that are laid down to encourage availability of youth friendly services are implemented in all Health centres by December 31st 2014.
Objective 3: To engage 3 Religious leaders( Anglican, Catholic and Born Again), 3 politicians( LC5, Ministers of Health, Education and Youth) and policy makers( Parliament caucus on health and youth) in discussions about bridging the inter-generational gap between adults and young
people to necessitate communication between adults and adolescents about sexuality by December 31st 2014.
Expected outcome 2; Increased implementation of youth friendly SRHR policies laid down by government and Ministry of Health in all Health centers.
Expected outcome 3; increased number of adults actively engaged in advocating for SRHR issues for young people.
Objectives: Create awareness for the young people today campaign Share information about Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights / HIV trends in Uganda
On the 18th of November 2014 we were hosted on Urban TV by Daniel Mumbere, a Ugandan youth that has zeroed in on telling uganda stories on #Tag, a show that looks out for the most trending hashtags of the day on twitter and hosts the social media influencers behind the hash tag to give the viewers a deeper insight on live television. This airs Monday To Friday at 9:10pm.This was after a Tweetup that was organised by Reach a Hand Uganda and hosted by UNESCO to discuss the Young People Today (YPT) campaign that culminated into the hash tag #ypt campaign to be the most trending that day in Uganda. Ronnie Tusingwire, Reach A Hand’s Communication and Advocacy Officer and Bakshi Asuman, Reach A Hand’s Programme Manager were hosted and they gave a deeper insight of the #tag and encouraged people to join this campaign online which has since highly talked about on different social media Platforms. Bakshi Asuman also encouraged young people to use condoms correctly and consistently. He did a female condom use demonstration on live Television as a lot of young people do not know about these condoms or how to use them .
On 1st December 2014, Reach A hand Goodwill ambassador and the first religious leader in Africa to publicly announce his HIV positive status, Rev Canon Gideon Byamugisha and Jacqueline Alesi a young Ugandan living openly with HIV and also a representative of young people and children on the national board Forum for people living with HIV Network Uganda were hosted on Urban TV’s famous Urban Today, a morning show with fresh information,power interviews by Malaika Nyanzi and Samson Kasumba to discuss the young people today campaign and how such a campaign can help in achieving the world AIDS day goal of getting to Zero new HIV infections, Zero Mother To Child HIV transmission and Zero HIV related Deaths. Both Reverend and Jackie emphasized and encouraged people to stop stigmatizing HIV infected persons as one of the ways we can achieve that goal. “Someone has condoms so he thinks, ‘I can sleep anywhere’. That is misuse” said Reverend Gideon Byamugisha. He ended by encouraging young people to start living responsibly as they are the future of this nation.
On November 19th 2014, Reach A hand Uganda’s Communication and Advocacy Officer Ronnie Tusingwire and Mr. Charles Dracebo the National Professional Officer HIV, UNESCO were hosted on Uganda’s most watched Television Station UBC on the Good morning Uganda show by Ms Jane Kasumba, a renowned media lawyer to give more insight to the viewers about the young people today campaign. Mr Charles Dracebo talked in depth about The Eastern and Southern commitment and how it led to the birth of the Young people Today Campaign, when it was signed and who is responsible to ensure that this commitment is implemented. We enlightened the viewers on what sexuality education is comprised of and cleared the misunderstandings of the public as they seemed to have mixed feelings about Comprehensive sexuality Education and teaching young people how to have sex. “Comprehensive sexuality education does not teach young people how to play sex but rather prepares them for that time it comes, so that they are ready and can ably make safe and informed decisions.” Said Mr Charles Dracebo, National Professional Officer HIV, UNESCO.
NBS Television, a leading 24-hour multi-content channel broadcasting live from Kampala, Uganda on the morning of world AIDs day hosted Mr Charles Dracebo the National Professional Officer HIV at UNESCO and Juliet from Save the children Uganda on their Morning Breeze talk show hosted by Simon kaggwa Njala and Doreen Komuhangi to discuss about the “ESA commitment” which is the East and Southern Africa Ministry commitment on comprehensive sexuality education. The ESA commitment was signed by ministers and permanent secretaries of health and education from the Eastern and southern African countries as a pledge to have comprehensive sexuality education in their countries curriculum and the importance of this commitment was also highlighted during the show hence “The Young People Today Campaign”
On the evening of 1st December,2014, we took the campaign to NTV Uganda, a Ugandan Tv that went on air in December 2006. The station airs across Uganda on both free-to-air as well as on DStv channel 283. NTV Uganda is a subsidiary of Nation Media Group, East & Central Africa’s largest media group. The station has raised the bar of excellence in quality TV programming, with a programme line-up composed of the latest award winning international shows as well as the best in local programmes. Reach A hand Cultural Icons GNL Zamba, Ray signature, Jasmine Lydia, Big Trill who are all big musicians in East africa were hosted by Douglas Lwanga a renowned Tv presenter on the Beat a show on NTV uganda a show that focuses on showcasing both international and urban Music. They talked about how Reach A Hand is using is music and celebrities to reach out to young people with comprehensive sexuality Education message and also influence positive change. They discussed about a songs they have done with RAHU in an attempt to address SRHR issues affecting the
young people majorly here in Uganda, for example the “If Its Not Its Not Safe” a song that focuses on educating young people on HIV/AIDS epidemic, empowering young people with information to help them make informed choices especially the correct and consistent use of condoms as the ultimate dual protection - concurrent protection from unintended pregnancy, HIV and other STIs.
Acknowledgement Reach A hand would like to extend its sincere gratitude to UNESCO for the continued support both financially and technical support in trying hosting the Tweetup and helping in making it a success We would also like to thank the different TV stations that allowed to host us and talk about the young people today campaign on air. Special recognition to all individuals that that tuned in to watch the different shows and even called in to ask questions,tweeted and contributed to these discussions.
1,000,000 condoms distributed With support from our peer educators, we carried out several community outreaches in Nsangi town center, Kyadondo rugby grounds during the protector rugby series,World contraceptive day at Kati Kati grounds in Kampala. We had a flash mob and condom drive with the bodaboda association of Madinisa stage in Makindye division and also participated in the SRHR alliance week in Tororo district Eastern Uganda, The Fishing communities of Kasenyi and Kigugu landing sites were also reached. This was to provide SRHR information to out of school young people in the communities. During which we distributed 1,000,000 condoms provided by UNFPA Uganda. During the condom drives, RAHU Cultural icons and Peer Educators conducted condom demonstration.
One of the key issues that was highlighted in the condom drives was the possibility to significantly increase condom use in commercial, casual, marital/steady and youth sexual partnerships and while there is significant increase in condom use ,commercial sex has seen a greater increase than any other type of partnership. An online survey on attitude, perception and knowledge about female and male condoms under the Its Not on Its Not Safe Campaign. conducted between 14th to 25th September by Reach A Hand Uganda indicated that 47% of the respondents had unprotected sex a month before the survey was conducted and 47% of the respondents believe if given choice most males won’t use a condom and 6% strongly disagree.
With these findings we realise that there is more need for RAHU to conduct more condom drives and ease access of condoms to young people.
5,000 new HIV tests done. RAHU has built strong partnership with Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) to provide health counseling, testing and referrals while engaging young people. RHU has so far provided HIV Counseling and Testing to 4,075 (1,667 females and 1,048 males), blood grouping of 275 and Sexual Transmitted Infections/Sexual Transmitted Diseases screening of 85 young people. With this partnership we have managed to refer all Young People
we found with HIV for treatment and continued support from different youth friendly health centers. The HIV Testing was conducted during the SRHR Alliance Week in Tororo, Flash Mobs in Nsanji Urban Council, Madinisa Stage in Makindye and in Kisenyi Kampala City centre and during the Condom Drive awareness in the Fishing Communities of Kasenyi and Kigungu.
Flash Mobs In partnership with Kyuka Youth Outreach, a community based youth organization that uses dance and creative arts to transform and empower young people. We have hosted 3 Major Flash Mob Activations in Madinisa Zone in Makindye Division, Nsangi Urban Council in Wakiso and Kisenyi in Kampala Central. These act as avenues for mobilizing youth to access information on SRHR and Health Counselling and Testing, and Safe Male Circumcision Services. These have also played a role in our condom drives. We have reached a total of over 500,000 Young People during the flash mobs.
Intergenerational Dialogue Organised to commemorate World Sexuality Day in Uganda, under the theme “Strengthening Effective and Meaningful involvement of a Young Nation in Sexual Reproductive Health.” The first ever inter-generational dialogue aimed to bridge the generation gap, focusing on the role of adults, policy makers and community leaders in promoting comprehensive sexuality education and youth friendly sexual and reproductive health and rights services.
Government should promote peer-to-peer education at health centers. “Peers can easily handle fellow peers once trained. NARGIS SHIRAZ, CO-FOUNDER WOMAN FOUNDATION AND COORDINATOR OF ‘IT TAKES TWO CAMPAIGN’
The all-day event was an exchange to promote effective and meaningful involvement of the youth in Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) program development. Through these conversations, participants highlighted; what young advocates can learn from the experiences of the old advocates to become better advocates of youth SRHR. Reality of youth SRHR issues and needs for the perspective of young people. With young people putting forward their views to policy makers, leaders and elders to address as key issues on SRHR. The dialogue took place at National Water and Sewerage Corporation International Resource Centre, Bugolobi, Kampala, on 13th September, 2014 With over 250 participants attending, the event was presided over by Dr. Collins
Tusingwire, assistant commissioner of Reproductive Health in the ministry of Health who represented the Minister of State for Primary Health Care as the guest of Honor. During the dialogue, the Key issues identified included Access to youth Friendly Services and Unsafe Abortions leading to high mortality rates. Jackson Chekweko, the executive director of Reproductive Health Uganda said there is no need for abortion, adding that government only needs to reorient its health service providers to learn how to handle young people. Phiona Mbabazi, a student of Community Psychology at Makerere University said young people are not given the attention they deserve in health facilities. “The problem is that when we young people visit health facilities to get help, we are not given due attention to explain our problems by the adults. They shout at you, judge you and regard you as an outcast,” she said. Nargis Shiraz, co-founder Woman Foundation and coordinator of ‘It Takes Two Campaign’, said government should promote peer-to-peer education at health centers. “Peers can easily handle fellow peers once trained.”
Conclusion In conclusion, through the support received from UNESCO and other partners, RAHU has been able to reach more young people, carry out more activities to reach out to more young people with information on SRHR & HIV/AIDS, build capacity of its staff, create more beneficial networks and maintain old ones. RAHU has managed to reach over 1 million young people with messages and information on SRHR & HIV/AIDS.
Plot 7502, Block 244, Kitaranga - Kasanga,Gabba Road P.O.Box 21288 Kampala,Uganda Tel: +256414697037 Email: info@reachahand.org Web: www.reachahand.org