Introduction
Young Strong Mothers Foundation (YSMF) is a nongovernmental, non-profit, and nonpartisan organization. YSMF began in 2012 as an idea from Ms. Jackie Bomboma, a victim and survivor of teenage pregnancy and GBV, and her daughter Rose Mayunga. Together, they decided to transform their past trauma into a sharp tool to empower, inspire, motivate, and advocate for the rights of women and girls, especially teenage mothers. YSMF was officially registered as an NGO on 09th February 2015 under 00NGO/00007768.
Overall Objective
The overall objective of YSMF is to promote safety, health, education and socioeconomic well-being of adolescent young mothers and their children. YSMF believes that improvements in women’s empowerment contribute to poverty reduction. Investing in women and girls – in their health, their education, their financial well-being, and their role in decision-making - is critical to alleviating poverty and empowering them with gender equality results at the end.
Why Girls Education Empowerment?
The issue of child marriage, teenage motherhood and school dropout is a serious matter, basically due to the social ills affecting the vulnerable poor families who have limited or no access to sexual and reproductive health education, basic needs, right information as well as fear of breaking the traditional norms and taboos of open discussions on sex and relationships to the young ones. Currently school girls between the ages of 11 to 18 years are finding themselves pregnant and hence dropped out from school.
Most girls are forced into child marriage or transaction for them to survive. They drop out of school because of shame of what they wear to school and being kicked out of class due to lack of educational materials for them to participate in all sessions. All these challenges lead to drudgery, prostitution, domestic abuse, abandonment and extreme poverty.
Living without education or skills that can help them seek employment or create self-employment opportunities make them become most vulnerable group in the community, facing all kind of abuse and discrimination. This challenges not only affect the girl or teenage mother herself but continue to their families and children as well.
Investing in girls education is a sustainable solution to poverty, new spread of HIV/AIDS, gender discrimination, female dependency, unexpected child pregnancy and death.
Results:
- 500 Girls reached, rescued and supported with holistic education materials in 10 schools, 5 districts in 2 regions of Tanzania
- 10 netball team for girls were established and supported with the training materials
- 500 girls were trained life skills, gender equality awareness, SRHR and received Psycho-social support and counseling
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