Leaders from different sectors in Phalombe district have been drilled on how they can deal with challenges which Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) are facing in the district.
Phalombe Youth Arms Organisation (PYAO) organized these orientations with the aim of strengthening referral and coordination among sectors and committees which put lives of adolescent girls and young women at heart.
These trained 20 leaders are from traditional authorities of Chiwalo and Jenala respectively and among them there are child protection workers, peer educators, Area Development Committees (ADCs), peer educators, just to mention a few.
PYAO Executive Director Vincent Thom said these trained people are crucial in as far as achieving AGYW 2018-2022 strategy hence his organization decided to orient them on some of the needs of the AGYW.
“You can see that among this group we have members from ADCs which are in the forefront in development the village action plans which are master plans for the development of the whole traditional authority.
“Our girls and young women are facing so many challenges and these people we have oriented can sit together and help in implementing the strategy by incorporating it in their development plans,” said Thom.
In his remarks, Assistant centre coordinator in Swang’oma education zone, Dines Tebulo, commended PYAO for the orientation saying this will help to curb challenges facing the AGYW.
“This was a fruitful orientation, there are some things which we have been putting them aside, now we know that we can coordinate with the health office to come and teach our learners about safe sex as some do not abstain.
“Knowledge gap is what has been the challenge, some of us we were not aware about this strategy, going forward we have to join hands and protect our girls and young women,” he said.
The orientations were part of the one-year project called improving delivery and access to HIV services for young people living with HIV in the district supported by US embassy- PEPFAR which is expected to be completed on September 30 next year.
