Last week, the government launched an eight-month campaign against teenage pregnancy. The campaign will be supported by the Ministry of Gender, Family Promotion, and Education. The campaign that will take place in more than 90 schools countrywide comes after indications from the 2010, Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey show that 6 per cent of girls aged between 15 and 19 especially in rural areas are teenage mothers. Sadly still, a number of adolescent pregnancies have been reported on several occasions hence a need for these combatant strategies. Speaking at the launch of the campaign in Kigali last week, Henriette Umulisa, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, urged parents to impart morals in their children to prevent teenage pregnancies. Finally, youth who decry unemployment have something to smile about now that last week’s call by the Association of Traditional Healers, commonly known as Aga Rwanda has its network bent on recruiting youth in their activities. Daniel Gafaranga, the president of the association, said by the end of the year, at least 300 youths will be brought on board. According to Gafaranga, current members are mostly from the old generation and use traditional practices which call for fresh knowledge from the young generation. The association will target those who have completed secondary school with a bias in science disciplines like biology and chemistry. In other news, researchers, scholars and dairy industry stakeholders met in Kigali to assess the threat of mastitis, a disease that affects cattle and quality of milk. Speaking at the opening of three day meeting on Tuesday, Dr Christine Kanyandekwe, the deputy director general in charge of animal resources at Rwanda Agriculture Board, said serious measures should be designed to curb the spread of mastitis. She said: “Currently Mastitis on dairy farms stands at 0.5 per cent nationwide and even without data on losses caused by the disease, we need to set serious measures to prevent it from our herds.”
