The project is meant to bridge the gap on lack of direct youth-focused or youth-led relief measures for Uganda at community and national level.
Youth comprise about 78% of the population in Uganda, yet during the COVID 19 pandemic in Uganda, their needs have been less prioritized and in fact are being compromised. Youth are certainly struggling with socio-economic issues; they are also not able to take care of their immediate and pressing health needs, limited access to age specific COVID 19 information. This is even more critical for youth out of school and are of reproductive age who can’t readily access health information they need, can’t access free family planning commodities and contraceptives they need, and young people living with HIV who are now unable to access Health facilities to honor their clinic appointments for refills and regular monitoring.
It’s also critical for young people of reproductive age who can’t travel to health facilities to access family planning commodities like condoms among others since the public transport means where closed down by the President of the republic of Uganda when he introduced the lock down in Uganda. Many have opted to unprotected sex which exposes them to sexually transmitted diseases including exposure to HIV and unwanted pregnancies.
The project is meant to bridge the gap on lack of direct youth-focused or youth-led relief measures for Uganda at community and national level. Peer To Peer Uganda (PEERU) works closely with the national and district task force teams, Ministry of Health and the office of the Prime Minister to conduct the project activities.
PEERU is working with young people in Uganda through using its community peer leaders to bridge the gap through providing personal protective equipment (PPE) including face masks, sanitizer’s mega phones for community sensitization, offer field facilitation for peer leaders, and further providing COVID 19 materials including awareness creation and sensitization at the grass roots communities complementing government efforts. PEERU is also supporting health facilities through their youth corners/ centers to appropriately control and further minimize the spread of COVID 19 at health facilities. The project has intensified the scale up of activities towards COVID 19 control and prevention since March 2018 to date. The project has previously been supported by Frontline AIDS and Pediatric AIDS and Treatment Africa (PATA).
The project is implemented in communities across major towns with high density populations in 4 districts of Kampala, Kamuli, Wakiso, and Luwero districts through our community peers. PEERU also through the project conducts mass media engagements through platforms like radios, TV’s, print media and social media as avenues for awareness creation, psychosocial support, counselling, conducting referral and linkages, information sharing and sensitization at both national and grassroots levels. We work with the district task forces teams for better results and coordination.
If your interesting in also supporting or partnering with us on this project, please reach out to us through contacts on this website.