Online Reporter
Isaac Waniwa
“NOT In My Village” campaign meant to fight teenage pregnancies and HIV/Aids being spearheaded by the National Aids Council (NAC) with support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), has now moved to Bulawayo.
The campaign, which is being driven by the Young People’s Network on Health and Well-being (YPNHW) was launched in Mashonaland Central province last year. It is now being rolled out to other provinces and Bulawayo is probably the first metropolitan province to embrace the campaign.
The city, which has an estimated population of 667 000 people of which about 148 000 are young people aged between 10-19 years, has slightly modified the campaign to “Not In My Constituency, Not in My Ward”.
Preparatory work to launch the campaign have already started and the city is divided into three NAC districts.
According to NAC’s District Aids Co-ordinator Mrs Bekezela Mudzindiko, meetings have already been held with councillors and Members of Parliament to solicit their support.
Mrs Mudzindiko said the support from both councillors and MPs was overwhelming and she expects a similar buy-in as meetings cascade to other levels of community leadership in the city.
Addressing journalists at a NAC media quarterly review meeting recently, Mrs Mudzindiko said both councillors and MPs pledged to support the campaign meant to tackle the problem of teenage pregnancies and HIV/Aids.
In rural areas, the “Not In My Village’’ campaign has provided a platform for traditional leaders who include chiefs, headmen, village heads and other stakeholders to develop strategies of combating HIV/Aids whose spread is fuelled by social ills such as child marriages and teenage pregnancies.
In urban areas such as Bulawayo, councillors and MPs are expected to lead the campaign. Mrs Mudzindiko said stakeholders in Bulawayo are worried by the increasing number of teenagers becoming pregnant hence the decision to launch the campaign meant to mobilise community leaders to fight teenage pregnancies that expose the young girls to HIV/Aids.
She said in 2023 alone, 2 655 pregnant girls aged between 15-19 years booked for Antenatal Care (ANC) in Bulawayo, a confirmation that the city is battling teenage pregnancies.
Mrs Mudzindiko said what is disturbing is that one in 10 maternal deaths in Zimbabwe occurs in adolescent mothers.
According to NAC, 23 percent of adolescent girls aged between 15 and 19 have experienced sexual violence, 17 percent of the girls in the same age group have given birth while another 17 percent are pregnant with their first child.
Nine percent of the girls have sexually transmitted infections (STIs). The statistics also revealed that between 40 and 70 percent of the girls with disabilities experience sexual abuse upon reaching 18.
The HIV/Aids burden among young women is high as adolescent girls aged between 15 and 19 have an HIV incident rate 7,3 times higher than their male counterparts.
The decision to launch the “Not in My Village” campaign in Bulawayo is very timely, given that donors that have been funding most HIV/Aids programmes in Zimbabwe and other developing countries are scaling down the support following the US “Stop Work Orders”.
NAC Bulawayo provincial manager Mrs Sinatra Nyathi said what is worrying is that the reduced funding has affected mostly the preventive programmes hence the need for the country to mobilise domestic resources to continue the programmes.
Zimbabwe, which has about 1,3 million people living with HIV, had, before the Stop Work Orders, embarked on the development of an HIV Response Sustainability Roadmap in a Government-led multi-sectoral process.
The country, which stands to lose 55 percent of the donor funding by September, growing to 90 percent by December 2026 risks reversal of its commendable gains over the years hence the urgent need for sustainable domestic financing.
