The Centre for Social Research (CSR) in collaboration with the African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC) have launched the interventions of the PROMOTE project which the two research institutions are implementing in Blantyre. PROMOTE is a project which seeks to examine what interventions can be fundamental in stimulating decisions among adolescent mothers aged 10-19 to go back to school or enroll for vocational training. The project which started with a baseline study last year in November has recruited a total of 288 adolescent mothers in Blantyre city. The three interventions being implemented in this project are: Life skills training, subsidized child care and cash transfers to adolescent mothers who will make decisions to go back to school or enroll for a vocational training.

 

The project interventions launch which took place at Shalom Palace Lodge in Blantyre brought together different stakeholders including government officials from the ministry of Gender and Community Development, Ministry of Education, Technical, Entrepreneurial and Vocational Education and Training Authority (TEVETA), civil society organizations such as Youthnet and Counselling (YONECO), Young Christian Women Association (YCWA), community leaders, and a cross-section of adolescent mothers and their parents.

 

In her remarks the Acting Director for CSR, Associate Professor Chrissie Thakwalakwa, highlighted that this is a unique research project which aims at achieving economic empowerment of adolescent mothers so that they are self-reliant and capable of taking care of their children. She said PROMOTE is a product of the results from another project which CSR together with APHRC conducted in 2021 on the lived experiences of pregnant and parenting adolescents which revealed that most of them were out of school although they had indicated their wishes to be back in school but were constrained by financial problems and other challenges such as lack of child support.

 

“This is a project that is developed from the views of the pregnant and parenting adolescents we interacted with in 2021 who expressed interest to go back to school but said they were frustrated by other factors such as lack of someone to take care of their children but also lack of school fees. This project therefore is offering skills training, subsidized child care to allow children of the adolescent mothers to enroll at Community-based Child Care Centres (CBCCs). The project will also support the adolescent mothers with fees to go back to school or enroll for vocational training. This would give us an idea of what can really work for adolescent mothers to go back to school so that we can inform other stakeholders such as government on how adolescent mothers can be empowered” said Associate Professor Thakwalakwa.

 

The interventions will run for a year and an end-line survey will be conducted in 2024. The study is being implemented in high density areas of Ndirande, Bangwe, Zingwangwa, Chilomoni, Mbayani, Kachere, Machinjiri and Nkolokoti townships of Blantyre City with financial support from the International Development Research Council (IDRC). A similar project is also being implemented in Burkina Faso.