Who we are
Peerless Support is a charitable, Community Based Organization (CBO) that was founded in 2019 under URSB No. 800200024252 and registered as a CBO Reg. No. WCBO/22/7635, based in Wakiso District, Uganda. Our primary focus is to provide Advocacy and capacity building to teenage mothers affected/infected by HIV/AIDS, to live healthy and productive lives.
We believe that the youths can be skilled to lower the unemployment rate themselves.
There are many negative variables affecting young people, especially young women and girls in the district. According to the 2014 population and housing census conducted by UBOS, females who are aged 12-19 years who have given birth stand at 15.3%, while the proportion of women (young females) aged 10-17 years who have ever been married is 6.5%. This implies that child marriages are prevalent in the district with devastating effects on the future of young women and girls. Regarding young people (aged 10-17) who are in child Labour, the census data puts the proportion at 40.1%, while the proportion of the same age group that is illiterate stands at 22.3%.
The above factors call for a consistent and sustained intervention to reach out and support the disadvantaged young people (10-25) to access vocational skills, life skills training, access to medical care, health education, information, counseling and guidance, access to agricultural inputs, and training in modern farming skills, in the intermediate and long term; while in the short time to support access basic material things such as books, clothing, etc.
Facts
In Uganda, 34.8% of Uganda’s population are adolescents with a similar sex distribution. Many young people, especially in rural Uganda, are faced with a myriad of challenges including, but not limited to high levels of poverty, limited access to education, high literacy rates, and high rates of pregnancy, and early marriages among others. For instance, according to data obtained from United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA),10.9% of young males aged 10-24 years are heading households; while 38.5% of young people aged 10-19 live in the two poorest wealth quintiles. In addition, 10% of 6-10year old have never been to school; whereas 22% of adolescents aged 13-18 have dropped out of school. 8.8 million young people aged 15-24 are not engaged in education, employment, or any training. These factors have recently been compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic which has seen a rise in teenage pregnancies of children who have been out of school for a prolonged period.