UYAHF Adolescents' Health Clinic
A former drug addict turned peer educator through the shesoars project: meet omuko sunday
“On top of being a SHESOARS SRHR peer educator, I also want to become an agriculturalist so that I can incorporate farming skills into my SRHR peer-led sessions with the young people to improve their employability and self-sustainability,” happily stated Sunday, one of their SHESOARS peer educators for Katrini sub-county in Omugo district.
“On top of being a SHESOARS SRHR peer educator, I also want to become an agriculturalist so that I can incorporate farming skills into my SRHR peer-led sessions with the young people to improve their employability and self-sustainability” happily stated Sunday, one of their SHESOARS peer educators for Katrini sub county in Omugo district.
Besides his weekly SRHR session with the adolescents, Omuko Sunday, 21 is currently pursuing a national certificate in agriculture at Lokopio Technical Institute in Yumbe, a course he says he is paying for with the monthly facilitation given to him for conducting the SHESOARS peer-led sessions.
“I am almost finishing my agricultural course and interestingly I am paying with the savings from the facilitation I get for my weekly sessions. I want to ensure that the peers are healthy and aware of their SRHR rights but also able to do better food production to reduce the food shortage which is one of the major causes of SGBV in my community” Sunday said.
Growing up, Sunday struggled to deal with drug addiction and violent behaviors as a boy in a community where violence is considered a sign of strength and positive masculinity. According to him, in the community, one is praised for being aggressive and this has encouraged many young boys to get involved in drug consumption especially marijuana and cannabis with a belief that it will boost their mental and energy so that they are fearless and aggressive.
“I was one of the most notorious boys here, my parents had given up on me, I dropped out of school, and started attending night discos, I was one of the most stubborn and feared boys in the trading center.
Many of the young boys here do drugs and sometimes rape girls and the community has given up on them. Local leaders even fear them.” he added.
Sunday says because of his notorious nature in the community when the subcounty was looking for active young people to work with as peer facilitators, all the boys pointed at him not because he was the best but because they feared him and that is how he was introduced to the SHESOARS project.
About SHESOARS project
SHESOARS; Sexual and Reproductive Health and Economic Empowerment (SHE) Supporting Out-of-school Adolescent Girls’ Rights and Skills (SOARS) is a seven-year project funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC).
It was launched in partnership with CARE on March 31st, 2022. SHESOARS supports out-of-school adolescent girls who are consistently left out of traditional adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) programming. It works to provide evidence-based sexual and reproductive health information, address root causes of gender-based inequalities, improve health services, and work with young people, particularly girls, to promote decision-making about their lives and bodies.
Peer-led sessions: “When I was picked, we were taken to Arua city by UYAHF and trained by CARE on Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) including topics like STI, personal hygiene, and how to be champions to stop sexual gender-based violence, teenage pregnancy, and child marriages.
According to Sunday, many young people in his community especially girls did not know about their rights and how to access health services that’s why there were high rates of teenage pregnancy, early child marriages, and sexual gender-based violence.
“Through the peer-led sessions, I have been able to empower about 50 to 60 beneficiaries mostly adolescent girls, and young mothers on various topics like personal hygiene, preventing teenage pregnancy, reporting SGBV cases, linking young people to health care facilities, dangers of child marriage and engaging in meaningful community activities such as communal cleaning among others”.
From these sessions, he says there has been a great change in his community in terms of mindset change towards education, personal conduct and behaviour, especially for the boys adding that many have now started seeking health services freely at the health facilities through the youth-friendly spaces.”
“As I speak now, we no longer have those boys who used to idle around in the trading centers, they are copying my behaviors now. Three beneficiaries including Osoma Sydini, Agani Jonathan, and Araka have gone back to school and the young mothers have improved their hygiene” he revealed.
Sunday is grateful that he has gained a positive reputation in the community and has helped change the lives of very many young people due to his role as SHESOARS peer educator.
“I am happy and thank UYAHF with support from CARE for bringing to us the SHESOARS project. I assure you that SHESOARS will go but I will continue to champion and form a positive community force while working with leaders to challenge harmful practices and teach young people about their SRHR rights” Sunday concluded.