“It was around 2017 whereby I lost a very close friend of mine named Juliana, who lost her life due to unsafe abortion from unintended pregnancy. Her death raised a lot of questions in my head such what if she had the knowledge on sexual and reproductive health or if she didn’t feel shy to access one of the contraceptives maybe her story would have been different”. It was a painful moment for me and since she was just a form two young girl and I believe she also had dreams like other young girls. Her cause of death, I took it as a challenge and I said I want to be her ambassador and spread the knowledge so that to prevent these deaths.
I came to realize that we are still lacking friendly services especially to young people when it comes to the access of sexual and reproductive health services and thus many young people feel shy and uncomfortable to go the health center to access either information or services. Her death motivated me also to use my carrier as medical personnel to educate my fellow young girls especially in the matters concerning sexual and reproductive health but also on issues of gender equality because i have also come to realize that not all young girls their voices are heard when it comes to decision making on health issues. So this has also motivated me to start this campaign and walk towards each young girl’s goals. It was from there that the campaign to honor her was developed which is called Her Movement “towards her rights and goals” which is based on raising awareness to more adolescent girls and young women in sexual and reproductive health and rights as well as providing them with options such as contraceptives.
This campaign has empowered more than 500 adolescent girls and young women on Sexual and reproductive health and got knowledge and ways to protect themselves from unintended pregnancies. This campaign has broken the silence in issues around safe sex and sexual health in general. I have been advocating for the sexual and reproductive health and rights and gender equality for the past four years to ensure that we spread the knowledge, to ensure that we emphasize the friendly services to young people when it comes to sexual health services. The campaign now is running from secondary school level and university level in the Dodoma region in Tanzania because this is one of the regions whereby the rate of students who drop out from school due to unintended pregnancies is very high. But also we are doing an online campaign in our social media pages so that we can engage more people across the country to participate and give out their opinions on the challenges that we are solving in our communities. The Her movement goals is to ensure that adolescent girls and young women have knowledge in sexual and reproductive health, also knowledge on human rights as well as access to youth-friendly services and become champions in their communities. The response from the young people has been so great and now people have the knowledge and at least they don't feel shy about accessing the sexual and reproductive health information and services anywhere. Also we have been able to advocate for gender equality whereby there is equality and both boys and girls are now participating in decision making.