 Thank you for staying with us on Y254 News Update and if you are joining us tonight we are talking about Teenage Pregnancy Awareness and with me in studio is Karisa Fagyo who is the founder of Nihacheni Komai Initiative and we also understand Zyakibyo who is the founder of the Teen Pregnancy Awareness KE. Tonight we will talk about what are the causes of teenage pregnancies in the country what strategies or what ways can we put up to make sure that we curb teenage pregnancies if at least we cannot probably make sure that every girl gets to go through education without dropping out of school we try to see probably what is the government helping to make sure that this does not become a problem in the country no more and so I'm going to bring you guys in on this now and the first thing that I'm going to ask is why starting with you Karisa why did you start up the Nihacheni Komai Initiative most initiatives about teenage pregnancy we see female people behind such initiatives what motivated you to start the Nihacheni Komai Initiative Thank you Patricia for that question Nihacheni Komai is an initiative that was mainly driven by kind of making some observation that was pointing towards community degradation looking at the structure of our community or our societies you find that the continuity of any society depends on the ability of the society to have a steady future and talking of any future if it must have a meaning then the society must be having some features of growth as in if you're coming from probably community that didn't have much education you want to get a number of kids coming up with some good level of education if you had a society that didn't have probably some infrastructure like roads shopping centers, schools, hospitals you come to a point of having that kind of infrastructure now that is what signifies growth now any growth for it to have some meaning it must be accompanied by a vibrant society that has the human aspect attached to it we must be having a young generation which is having a brilliant or a bright future this is what can assure us that 20, 30 years we are going to have this kind of leaders now when you look at the numbers that were being posted as far as teenage pregnancy is concerned it was very clear that we are not having any future here because the kind of people we are looking forward to to become the leaders in the future are having their dreams being shattered at a very tender age so for a parent you find that when you get a child it is actually a very big investment you collect all your resources to make sure that you are giving the best shot to your kid so that in the future in the event that you start growing old you will have somebody who can take over the mantle now if the kids are shattered or the dreams of the kids are shattered at 13 years, 14 years you find that there is no where they can go and it means a child who is supposed to take over the responsibility of the family at an age of 20, 25 is becoming a burden again to the parent who is already worn out, tired and has spent all his resources so out of this observation we say we have to change this because we cannot continue with a society that will not have a future in terms of having a growing generation taking over from the old ones so with you Anastasia what can you say are some of the achievements that you have made from there when you started talking to young girls and talking to young boys about teen pregnancy thank you Patricia for this opportunity once again you're welcome we started teen pregnancy awareness in 2016 and so far after every visit we do in our school we do a follow up out of the six counties we visited so far every follow up we do it is positive there's never been a drop out again after pregnancy so that's a big achievement for us so what you're basically trying to say is that the talking, the conversations and that is the direct conversations between the girls and the boys is working so what is the cause for the years that you've operated what has been your hike what has been the things that you've highlighted these are the main causes that are paving way for teenage pregnancies again it depends with the county but number one is poverty because you go to a school take the attendance list and you find girls can't afford sanitary towels because their parents are not able to so they either use rags some even use soil you can imagine so the best way we are trying to come up with sanitary per distribution for every school we do a visit we provide for them just for a few months so that they can like a whole time they are sorted but yeah we need actually to come up with a strategy on how to handle the cases of where kids broken families is also an issue on these teenage pregnancies there is also lack of parental guide peer pressure actually peer pressure is the leading because I am pregnant my friend got pregnant so why not get pregnant and feel and then there is this people want to try and fit in a circle so most of the times when people when we have in conversations about teenage pregnancies last year during the release of the KCP results the professor Magoa say that don't expect that if you don't sit for the exam that we're gonna give you another exam so parents make sure that your girls are not getting pregnant most of the times we look at addressing parents caregivers and the girls when you're talking about when you're going your visit and doing your visit on the Niacheni Kama initiatives do you address the boys maa our approach is a bit different as long as we have a lot of interest in the boy because we know that at the end of the day she is the one who is going to be responsible for the pregnancy we decided that we are going to kind of jump the gun because before the boy child succeeds to make the girl pregnant the girl must say yes to this demand and as she is pointing as Anastasia is pointing here that there are a number of causes that are affecting these issues of teen pregnancy we decided that we don't want to be scientific about this issue because at the end of the day the girl knows very well there are so many examples more than enough which can teach this girl that getting pregnancy is not something that is what they are worth it is simply going to shut down your life it is going to make you rejected by the community it is going to make you lose a lot of dignity that you had at first so we said why can't we target the girl and empower the girl to be able to understand the meaning of her life her own life and then she stands strong to say no because any other person who comes to the life of the girl she is not there to do anything magical about the life of this girl but mess it up I think the girl that look here whoever comes to you and tries to seduce you or probably gives you some inducements for you to be able to give in to sex is simply giving this person a chance to win your life so we are investing a lot of power to make the girl understand and appreciate the fact that as far as her life is concerned if she gives in to any demand from a boy it is like signing a death certificate for her future so we insist on that and to the site we teach the boys that look here it is not just about being able to make a girl pregnant it is about becoming a responsible parent so if you cannot be a responsible parent you are still a student you have no business trying to pursue a girl and making this girl pregnant so we kind of silence their ego because there is some misunderstanding here when a boy starts getting some breaking voice he feels that I am a man enough being a man is not breaking the voice it is being able to stand and say this is my child the child is sick can I take the child to hospital this is my wife she is hungry can I get food for her so these are things which they must understand very clearly that we are not going to stand to tolerate some misleading concepts here and there when you are ruining people's lives here and there so now understand I will bring in the society again it is making sure that our girls go to they are taken to nursery school and at least after the second education if someone kind of make it to go to the university or the colleges they can at least go through some type of training how do we bring in the society so that we don't have only 3 people fighting for teen pregnancy awareness and then everyone else feels like it is okay I think it is not something that concerns me it is not my daughter it is not my son it is not my niece this person is not relating to me every time I get into that conversation I get emotional because I feel so sad someone's daughter has to drop out of school because they are not in a position or they lacked a role model because when they were growing up they only saw this type of a role model and when they followed they ended up being miserable in life I am not pro-choice because there are so many consequences I can't come and tell your daughter just take these pills and avoid do the contraceptives and avoid pregnancy that's not how we should go about it because it's like telling our teenagers we are sexualizing them and that's not the case we need to go back to basics back then how did things happen where a kid belonged to a society not just your parent and whoever is there for you so I think we need to go back to basics so for you now Karisa what areas probably what counties have you covered and what has been the success that you've seen so far we've done quite some extensive work in Kilife County Mombasa County we have done some work in Higa County we have done some work in Kisumu County we have done some bit of work in Nairobi not yet very pronounced we are yet coming with some plans that we are having for Nairobi but looking at the success rate we can say our campaign started in January this year and usually the outcome of reducing pregnancy must have a wash out period of about nine months assuming that by the time we were starting this campaign already we had some girls who were pregnant we need a wash out period of nine months before we can start counting success rate the only thing that we can have as a way of saying that we are successful is the way girls are coming out very boldly and really appreciating this kind of campaign because the other side of it would be probably finding some guys who are sharing away from a message and they are finding us like enemies because we are trying to squeeze them out of their comfort zones but you find that when you go to these schools and you are talking to them the girls are reyaling they are dancing, they are singing with you and they are feeling very happy infact one of the things that we succeeded when you go to the schools we tell them that anybody who greets you hi how are you, you tell her oh him, that niachen kumai and they are picking it very fast infact some people get embarrassed out of that you come a very senior person say hi girls niachen kumai now that way we feel like they are internalizing the message they are identifying themselves with the message and it's like they have gotten a friend who can tell them clearly what it means to be able to be patient and to concentrate in school work so that way we can talk of some very good success now as we are winding up I understand you would like to share your social media platforms and probably how people can reach you if someone wants to invite you to talk to young girls in the community and all that and final comments or final thoughts on now what you think really the government would chip in and make this fight or make sure that this campaign against teenage pregnancy can be solved let me start on the government can come in and help us curb the teenage pregnancy if the program which started back then I think in 2016 which was signed to build about the sanita reparts distributions to public schools personally I have never I am yet to meet somebody who has benefited from the program there were I think 400 million which was put aside for that but I have not had anyone who has benefited from the program so if they can implement that and it comes to reality I think they have helped a lot as a community we can as I have said we go back to basics what our parents and great grandparents because there were cases of teenage pregnancies then but they were not as rampard as they are now so we need to find out where we have gone wrong as a society and go back now we bring back the sanity we need in this country to curb the teenage pregnancies on how to get us on social media we are on Facebook Teen Pregnancy Awareness on Instagram and Twitter it's tpa awareness ke if you need to get in touch with us you can contact us on 0724 439115 or 072570192 you can also write to us on teenpregnancyawarenesskeatjumail.com wow thank you very much for that Karisa Fagiwa as you wind up what do you think the government can do to make sure that the niacheni koma initiative is realized maybe let's say faster than it would be if you just turned it by yourself thank you right now what we are trying to advocate is we have a number of programs that we have put in place to be able to manage this but a very quick fix that the government can help us to do is we have one of the concept we are using we call it adopt a banner now adopt a banner is making or availing a big banner 10m banner with the words niacheni komae and give it to a particular school this banner is put in a place where teachers will be seeing it on daily basis so after they given the message when they wake up in the morning they see niacheni komae when they come in the evening they see niacheni komae throughout the year so this one it will be keeping on shouting and rolling and rolling in the lives of these girls so if you can be able to have the government or even anybody any organization we are going to recognize your efforts just write their niacheni komae probably why 254 supports niacheni komae so we put it clearly we know that if it is alliance girls it's why 254 who have supported this school so adopt a banner we put it there and let the girls keep rolling seeing that message on daily basis as we have friends visiting the school the message there is niacheni komae it will become a kind of slogan and it will be fashionable to avoid any friendship with unnecessary friendship with boys and by doing this we will kind of be turning the girls into what Narcissi is saying here that they will not just be looking for ways of avoiding pregnancy after engaging in sexual activities but they will be shining away from unnecessary relationships to keep themselves pure because what we are talking about here is a total growth of the girl if you come to become a parent you should be able to manage your family well you should be able to reason well you should be able to advise your child well so we are targeting total growth of the kid so on facebook page possibly somebody can get into facebook and search for niacheni komae and like the page the interaction can come through that we have our phone numbers there you can always send us a message we have a very active social media team we can always respond to any requests but at least I would really urge let us put banners to all girls schools niacheni komae that will be a good message ok thank you very much and I hope you continue the same work and it's my hope that the work that you guys are doing and people out there will probably not gotten a platform like this to come and talk about the initiatives we are going to see the fruits of that probably during the 2019 PNKC where by probably the best number in some schools who have no cases of girls getting pregnant during the examination period and what I can say is that every person just as Anastasia has said has a role to play just as Karisa Faguyo has said let us be on the forefront also to push for these messages niacheni komae sometimes just when you get a platform to share with young people just to engage in the conversations with them and I'm sure that we can achieve this in making sure that there are no dropouts from girls in our country thank you very much for joining us tonight my name is Patricia Morioki do have yourself a very good night