Every year, almost half of all pregnancies, over 121 million, are unintended. With such high rates of unintended pregnancies, the world comes together every 26th of September to advocate for a world where all pregnancies are intended, to improve awareness of contraception, and to enable young people to make informed choices on their sexual and reproductive health. The high rates of unintended pregnancies especially among adolescents and young people call for the strengthening of contraceptive services and access to comprehensive post-abortion care.

Uganda Youth and Adolescent Health Forum (UYAHF) organized a radio talk show on Open Gates radio in Mbale with the theme ‘Access to SRHR and information; a means to end teenage pregnancy’. The guests hosted were Sr.Lillian Achom a nursing officer from the DHOs office, Sabon Doreen young person from the Eastern Network, and Nandere Magaret from Nakaloke health centre III. The radio hosts used this time to encourage listeners to access comprehensive information so they could be empowered with the knowledge to guide their decisions. The panelists discussed several issues among which included: the definition of contraception, different methods of contraception, what is teenage pregnancy, causes of teenage pregnancy, effects, and prevention.

The talk show was very educative and had over 13 callers of which 12 of them were men, which may be attributed to the limited access to radios and phones by women. Most of the callers credited the program while others raised issues that ranged from the myths and misconceptions and family planning, calling upon UYAHF to reach out to communities and sensitize more bout family planning use, especially among the young people. UYAHF continues to do community outreach, especially to reach adolescents and young people in rural communities, with accurate family planning information.