Youth
On a mission to commemorate World Population Day, youth from across West Pokot County were urged to be ambassadors in educating others on the triple threats known to be affecting many of them.
According to a social and behaviour change in Population Services Kenya official Israel Nzuki, the objective of commemorating the World Population Day was to raise awareness on matters affecting youth.
“Our objective of having this event to commemorate the World Population Day was to raise awareness on matters affecting youth in West Pokot and at the same time to hear the youth and community voices,” said Nzuki. He said through their programmes they have witnessed the impact on matters of family planning and Gender Based Violence (GBV), and there was need to have the same conversation at the grassroots in order to reach the young people.
Speaking during the event held at Kapenguria Youth Empowerment Centre, Bernard Kigen from the National Council for Population and Development (NCPD) said they were still celebrating World Population Day accordingly because the theme was about embracing data for decision making in investing in youth and adolescents.
He said they were able to address the youth on issues affecting the entire Pokot youth known as Triple Threats which included teenage pregnancies, sexual gender-based violence and sexually transmitted diseases. “We realised in West Pokot County according to research, the teenage pregnancy stands at 36 percent which is huge when children who are supposed to be in school,” said Kigen.
Youth engagement during commemoration of the World Population Day held at Kapenguria Youth Empowerment Centre on Wednesday July 24, 2024. Photos By Erickson Kiprotich
He also said there was need for sensitizing the various groups such as the religious leaders, the community leaders, the Nyumba Kumi members because they were the agents who could help extinguish the crises. He also called upon the society as a whole to act as agents of change by being a voice of the children who were not able to negotiate or talk about their pressing issues in order to end the triple threats cases.
“We are calling upon everybody including parents, teachers to be the voice of these children who are not able to talk about these issues by themselves,” said Kigen. He also emphasised on the need of empowering women on the need of using contraceptive so that they could be able to space their children saying that the population is rampantly increasing and can lead to inadequate resources availability.
He encourages each and every one the importance of knowing your health status of HIV emphasizing the need of visiting nearby health facilities to get tested and know their status. “HIV is not a dead sentence. It is a disease like any other so let us visit our health facilities so that we can know our status,” stated Kigen.
West Pokot County Reproductive Health Coordinator Mrs. Consolata Siree said she was elated meeting youth and adolescents on the need of addressing the threat of teenage pregnancy which has been leading across the county. She encouraged mothers to visit hospitals to receive birth control pills as research showed that the County records the lowest number of people practicing family planning.
She asked parents to participate in talking to their children at home, saying that this would help end childhood pregnancies. The youth cited poverty as one of the contributing factors to teenage pregnancy, noting that the majority of the girls ended up engaging in boy-girl relationships because they could not afford sanitary pads.