IN just the first quarter of 2018, the Ministry of Education’s School Health Nutrition and HIV Unit has assisted some 200 teen mothers with care packages needed to support themselves and their babies.

Of this 200, approximately 95 percent have expressed their interest in being enrolled in a vocational institution to continue their education.
This is an option being promoted in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health for teen mothers who are out of school, already delivered their babies and have completed six months of breast-feeding.

The initiative is dubbed the Care Packages HIV Reintegration Programme and has been ongoing for some three years now.
It seeks not only to assist the teens with basic needs, but encourages risk- reduction practices and promotes reintegration options which are advertised during visits to adolescent support groups at various health centres.

Head of the School Health, Nutrition and HIV/AIDS Unit, Janelle Sweatnam, explained: “It’s not for persons who are HIV positive, but we try to reduce persons’ risk of contracting HIV because when they’re pregnant and they’re young, they’re susceptible of putting themselves out there and contracting infections,” she said.

“When I share out the packages at the health centre, I usually speak to the mothers about our reintegration options, whereby they can go back to school and if they’re not interested in the mainstream school, they can go to a vocation institute,” she added.

The unit has already compiled a list of young women seeking to re-enter the education system and has plans to fund this venture come September.
Meanwhile, the packages include baby pampers, maternity pads, baby clothing, wipes, towels and more.

It seeks to put an end to the cycle whereby teen mothers develop Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and HIV due to their dependency on several men to support them with basic necessities.
Statistics show that Guyana has the second highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the Caribbean and South America of girls between 15 and 19 years old.