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CAMEROON - "AUNTIES" PROJECT TO SUPPORT & MENTOR TEEN MOTHERS

 

Nombuso - March 21, 2011 - 1:16pm

 

The Aunties Project is a peer reproductive health programme supported by Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) and Internationale Weiterbildung und Entwicklung gGmbH (InWEnt). The programme trains young adolescent mothers to become "aunties" who offer support and advice to other teenage mothers. They also give talks to young people about their experiences in an effort to prevent teenage pregnancies. The project uses a self-help and a peer approach and aims to bridge the gap between parents and teenage girls by reconstructing the character of the traditional aunt to guide and mentor youth.

Communication Strategies: 

A baseline study conducted in 2000 by the GTZ-supported health programme in Cameroon revealed that teenage pregnancies and risky sexual behaviour were widespread and needed an appropriate public health response. It became obvious that adolescents and especially girls did not have any experienced adults to ask for information or advice. The traditional role of the aunt - to provide moral and sexual education - was no longer being practised. Thus, the idea was developed to recruit teenage mothers and to train them as "little aunties," able and willing to inform and counsel their peers in the neighbourhood and in the schools.

The programme recruits teenage mothers from all over Cameroon and trains them to give testimony of their own experiences and to give advice to other adolescents in order to help them avoid the difficulties they themselves had experienced. By testifying in front of other young people in their neighbourhoods, in youth clubs, and in schools, the Aunties aim to help their listeners understand the risks of sexual behaviour and see the advantages of prevention.

In capitalising on the experience and the commitment of teenage mothers who suffered and struggled for their own and their child's survival, the project encourages a self-help as well as a peer approach. Organisers contend that not only do the adolescents who receive this counselling and advice benefit, but the teenage mothers benefit as well. The involvement of "victims" in prevention campaigns is considered by the project as a valuable concept if handled with respect, sensibility, and responsibility. The victims become empowered by sharing their knowledge and experiences and by helping others. In addition, the Aunties are encouraged to form their own association, which they name, and for which they develop the rules of
collaboration. These associations are reportedly recognised and valued by local authorities and community members.

The project philosophy of self-help is also the reason why all the teenage mothers who participate in the programme are volunteers. They receive neither a salary nor an allowance for their activities. The strict adherence to this concept is considered one of the keys to success of the project. The trained teenage mothers have to understand that they participate for themselves, not for anybody else. The organisers believe that motivation to be an Auntie comes from the empowerment and the fact that they are being valued in the community after having been marginalised.

All teenage mothers who participate in the programme take part in a 3-day basic training. The training aims to give the teenage mothers basic knowledge and skills in sexual and reproductive health, as well as the skills for speaking in public and encouraging a vision of a local self-help group. The Ministry of Health and the Ministry for Women's Empowerment supported the training sessions by sending trainers. The training programme gradually developed in a participatory manner as project staff, trainers, and trained teenage mothers regularly discussed progress and improved the training programme accordingly.

The steps to the programme include: