By Rackara Emmanuel
The reigning 22 year old Miss Uganda 2018/2019 Quinn Abenakyo, and other former holders are on a road through towards promotion of girl child education across the country.
The campaign started from Gulu under an umbrella of Role Model Foundation.
It is a worldwide campaign that shall reach other districts in the country with an emphasis of supporting girls to stay in school in connotation with reaching schools and women projects.
In Gulu, they visited Wawoto-kachel Women’s Beads Project, Gulu primary school and Sacred Heart Girls School, popularly known as ‘Zoo’.
Abenakyo, however said this initiative was a result of high rate of school dropout amongst girl child and related barriers affecting the female learners.
They are focusing on sensitizing the parents on the value of education to a girl child and her future, citing if women are empowered, they can be in support of the girl children they have.
“The women empowerment is to help in reducing early marriage, teenage pregnancy and female genital mutilation within some cultures,” she noted.
“Parents need to always tell their children they are beautiful and encourage them to stay focus in school,” she added.
Juliet Akech Amuny, the brand ambassador Rose Model Foundation revealed that parent has a negative mindset on girl child education which they have to withdraw.
Akech added that some parents say educating a girl child is a waste of resources and that “is what we want to confront through sensitization”.
Phiona Bizzu, Miss Uganda 2012 said: “it is a responsibility to spearhead this campaign as beauty queens and we want to support the girl children more especially in northern Uganda so that they grab the lucrative privileges in the country like other great women.”
According to United Nations Girls Education Initiative (UNGE), more than 700,000 girls in Uganda between the ages of six to 12 have never attended school.
Large contributor to this is low female literacy rates and school attendance rate is up to 40% of girls in Uganda which are married before the ages of 18, and around 10% of these girls are married before the ages of 15 while 25% drop out due to pregnancy.