Uganda at #57: Miklah Offers the Great Gift; Q&A platform for Comprehensive Sexuality Education-Life and Health!

Today is Uganda’s 57th Independence Celebrations and, instead of the usual political and boring question of ‘are we really independent?’, I asked a different one; what have I personally contributed to post-colonial Uganda? What personal efforts have I exhibited to see my Uganda become truly independent? And as you think about such questions, here is what we bring on table, our AMAZING offer: Life and Health-Comprehensive Sexuality Education for adolescents and youth in Uganda!

Talking about independence and not being fully independent, adolescents and youth (both boys and girls) have suffered serious challenges, ranging from adverse reproductive health and rights to poor governance. Problems of reproductive health and rights still come on top among the most stressful issues of adolescents and youth in Uganda and all over the world. This is because poor reproductive health indicators imply poor health, education, governance and everything else.

Currently, HIV/AIDS and STIs, Sexual and gender based violence, abortions, contraception, sexual orientations and deviant behaviors, unfriendly cultural practices like wife swapping or sharing, female genital mutilation and much more, early and forced marriages and pregnancy, defilement and sexual assaults, and so much more impede young people’s education, health, development and their general hopes for future.

Celebrating independence in a great way would require us to seriously consider addressing such issues and promising and delivering to them (adolescents and youth) better education, health, general life, governance and future. Sadly, this has always been, in the words of Nelly, ‘just a dream’, here in Uganda and elsewhere across Africa. This is so despite Uganda and Africa having bigger populations of young people, specifically adolescents and youth.

While comprehensive sexuality education has been recommended by World Health Organization, UNESCO, UNICEF, our own Ministry of Education and Sports, and so many other scholarly data out there as one single remedy to most of these young people’s challenges (MoES, 2018; UNESCO, 2009; World Health Organization, 2012), many youth and adolescents don’t access this information at all (MoES, 2018). Some young people, especially those in urban setting and in schools have tried to access sexuality education, but this information is usually unguided and uncensored, exposing them (youth and adolescents) to wrong, inappropriate uncensored sexuality materials (MoES, 2018).

In May 2018, Ministry of Education and Sports took a step further and released the Uganda’s first National Sexuality Education Framework 2018 to be a guiding pillar for comprehensive sexuality education in Uganda. However, sadly, this document isn’t known and hasn’t been implemented anywhere. Besides, political and religious controversies still undermine it.

As this ‘play’ keeps on, it is millions of adolescents and youth who pay the price, succumbing of HIV/AIDS and STIs, early and forced marriages and pregnancies, unplanned pregnancies and abortions, abuse, school drop-outs, gender based violence and so much more.

As we celebrate this 57th independence day, we @Miklah have re-launched our #LifeandHealth program after revamping it into the most plausible learning platform for adolescents and youth in Uganda. It is a youth and adolescents special corner for comprehensive sexuality education as guided by 2018 National Sexuality Education Framework.

How does it work? It is simple!

Life and Health is a web and mobile based Q&A adolescents and youth corner for all their questions regarding reproductive health and rights. To use the platform, just visit https://lifeandhealth.miklahlife.com and register your free account. To be specific, the platform has 3 major solutions:

1. Q&A platform. Every user can ask any question and get evidence and experience based replies from fellow peers and experts. At the same time, every user can answer questions to the best of his knowledge or research or field of expertise. Do you know Quora? Well, this is quora, only for reproductive health and rights questions and answers.

2. The Community. Life and Health is a social platform. Adolescents and youth can connect, have private and public chats, discuss important issues in forums or form and join groups of their choice. Wait! Enabling a guided and principled community is a strong remedy to today’s young people who have poor social relationships. Additionally, the platform has the ‘activity’ feature, which, just like Facebook, enables users to share what is on their mind every day or every minutes, including media (photos, videos, audios) and link uploads just like Facebook. Fellow users can comment, like or dislike your posts.

3. The Huge Blog. Now, here is the magic; our blog is your library in matters of sexuality, reproductive health and everything health. Here you read our well researched evidence-based articles and become a champion of knowledge. We plan to be the biggest writers for young people’s reproductive health in Uganda and Africa in the next few years.

There is more!

We won’t provide you with information only; we will link youth and adolescents to services, give you access to our entrepreneurship training sessions, avail SWAPafrica to you, and completely enroll you into Miklah family.

For now, just visit https://lifeandhealth.miklahlife.com and register your account. Celebrate your independence by answering adolescents and youth reproductive health questions or simply asking your own questions and get answered. Join the platform while it is still early. God Bless You

Happy Independence Day #57thIndependenceDay, #Miklah, #SacredEntrepreneurship, #LifeandHealth, #WordofLife, #LoveandRelationships, #SWAPafrica, #Uganda, #YouthandAdolescents, #ReproductiveHealth-Rights, #ComprehensiveSexualityEducation, #Nemvicx