Stopping teen pregnancies in Kilifi one talk at a time
Halima Abba Ali at the DSW office in Mombasa. PHOTO | KAZUNGU SAMUEL
What you need to know:
- Halima felt that the surest way to curb the worrying trend was to make available age appropriate sexual education to the teens.
- She visits schools and discusses sexuality with the teenagers.
- She believes in having a safe space for teens to talk freely about reproductive health and sex.
Halima Abba Ali, 33, is passionate about adolescents and improving their lives.
In 2013, she was involved in implementing the DSW Young Adolescents project that encourages boys and girls aged between 10 to 14 years to have open conversations on issues surrounding sexual and reproductive health. This was prompted by a surge in teenage pregnancies in 2013.
Halima felt that the surest way to curb the worrying trend was to make available age appropriate sexual education to the teens.
During an interview at her office in Mombasa, she narrated her day-to-day experiences with adolescents and the fascinating stories they share.
HANDS ON APPROACH
“My job focuses on sexual and reproductive health, and life skills for adolescents. I am currently in charge of Kilifi County and we usually meet the adolescents in schools. We later on form village health clubs where youth get knowledge on reproductive health and how to open up on body changes during puberty,” she says.
She says that children need to understand and effectively cope with the changes in their bodies during puberty.
Halima visits schools and discusses sexuality with the teenagers.
She believes it is important to have a safe space for teenagers to talk freely about reproductive health and sex, which is considered a taboo topic in many African settings. Kilifi is no different.
These outreach programmes target to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies, and school drop-out rate and absenteeism due to pregnancy. Halima says they have already seen a significant drop.
The DSW Young Adolescents project is active in 29 schools across Kilifi County. They include Benyoka, Bodoi, Kailo, Lugwe, Msumarini, Mtepeni, Mtomondoni, Mtwapa and Vipingo primary schools.
In addition, the project has established village health clubs to bring the reproductive health discussion closer to the teens. It also works with village elders to help the teens.
Halima is the Young Adolescents Project Coordinator, Kilifi chapter at Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevoelkerung (DSW). DSW is a German foundation that addresses sexual and reproductive health and population dynamics.
The DSW Young Adolescents project is run in collaboration with the ministries of Education, Health and Youth, and it is funded by Bayer through its life sciences programme.
Halima Abba Ali speaks at a meeting with youth in Arusha, Tanzania, last year. PHOTO | KAZUNGU SAMUEL
INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION
Halima’s passion for work continues to not only shape her life but also bag her several awards and global recognition. She recently gave a poster presentation on DSW Young Adolescents Projects in Kenya.
In 2014, she had the privilege of addressing the Germany Bundestag (Parliament) where she urged the German government to increase funding to support girls’ education in Kenya.
“I was nervous but I was able to address the Parliament and that is one of my most memorable moments. I had not imagined that my efforts to engage the youth would propel me to those heights,” she added.
The same year, she travelled to Brussels during the European Week of Action for Girls. The event is held on October 11 every year during the International Day of the Girl Child.
In 2015, she won a reviewer award for the International Conference for Family Planning (ICFP) abstracts during an event in Indonesia and a second one from the same organisation for the YAP project approach and methodology in Bali.
As a Commonwealth Scholar in education for sustainability at the London Southbank University, Halima believes that girls can rise to great heights through education and should not be forced to shelve their dreams because of unplanned pregnancies.
COMMUNITY WORK
Halima is also a soroptimist belonging to the Mombasa Club.
“At our club, we meet as women in Mombasa to discuss ways of empowering girls, especially in marginalised areas where they lack basic necessities such as sanitary towels and underpants,” she said.
Halima has a rich experience in working with communities for empowerment, and she is happy about changing people’s lives. In 2007, she worked as a project assistant with Hope for Victoria Children in her home town, Kisumu.
Her mandate was getting children off the streets and assisting them to get formal education.
One year later, she joined the Aga Khan Foundation as a development professional. It was in the course of her duty at the foundation that she first encountered pregnant girls and teenage mothers. Their desire to resume school and rise above the unplanned motherhood touched Halima to the core. And she decided to do something about it.
