Online Reporter
Sukulwenkosi Dube-Matutu [email protected]
TEENAGE pregnancies are on a steady decrease in Umzingwane District, a development attributed to community-oriented programming such as the “Not in my village” campaign.
The district recorded 222 teenage pregnancies from January to June this year compared to the same period last year where 238 cases were recorded.
Official records show that a total of 438 teenage pregnancy cases were recorded from January to December in 2025 while 505 cases were recorded over the same period in 2024.
The district has an HIV prevalence rate of 13,3 percent, which is a drop from 16 percent recorded last year.
In an interview during a National AIDS Council (NAC) tour Umzingwane District AIDS Coordinator, Mr Mduduzi Ngwenya, attributed the development to a number of interventions among them the “Not in my village campaign”, which was rolled out early this year.
He said teenage pregnancies are a concern as they are a sign of unprotected sexual activities and risky sexual behavior.
“This drop can be attributed to our programming and interventions, in particular the ‘Not in my village campaign’. Initially programming was being done top down where the partners were coming with solutions and implementing on the ground.
“The ‘Not in my village campaign’ is built around letting the communities themselves lead the interventions. We want them to identify the problems within communities and proffer the solutions,” said Mr Ngwenya.
“Each community or village is unique and, therefore, interventions should be tailor-made to suit the particular area. We are focusing on localised programming,” he said.
Mr Ngwenya said under the ‘Not in my village’ campaign, social ills are identified such as teenage pregnancies, children dropping out of school, drug and substance abuse, gender based violence, among others.
He said the local leadership then comes up with interventions to address these social ills with assistance from technocrats.
Mr Ngwenya said child protection committees have been strengthened from grassroots level. He said giving the response to the communities has improved outcomes and outputs. Mr Ngwenya said while progress has been recorded there is need for continued interventions as teenage pregnancies and school drops out cases remain high.
He said there are some ecological challenges which still exist and are linked to poverty, dynamics within family structures, cultural norms, among others.Mr Ngwenya said the ‘Not in my village’ campaign has put traditional leaders at the forefront in the fight to end teenage pregnancies and child marriages. He said under the campaign, traditional leaders have incorporated other stakeholders within their communities in the fight.
Mr Ngwenya said NAC is also implementing two models in the district including the “Sista2Sista” model targeting adolescent girls and young women between the ages 15 to 24, which is being complemented by the Behaviour Change Community Mentors (BCCM) programme targeting males. The district also has programmes that are being implemented by our partners targeting behaviour change.
The Government, in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), has rolled out the “Not in My Village” campaign. The initiative is youth-led, driven by the Young People’s Network on Health and Wellbeing (YPNHW), in partnership with NAC.
Eliminating child marriages and teenage pregnancies aligns with the National Development Strategy 2 (NDS2), which aims to create a prosperous and empowered upper-middle-income society by 2030.
Child marriages in Zimbabwe are influenced by several factors such as poverty, gender norms, cultural and religious beliefs, lack of access to education and comprehensive health services.
-@DubeMatutu
