The Sunday Mail
Online Reporter
OVER 500 000 teachers in Sub-Saharan Africa have been equipped to provide effective life skills education under the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco)’s O3 Plus project.
The first phase, which was launched in 2021, targets higher and tertiary education.
It is targeting 44 million adolescents and young people to address students’ unmet need for sexuality education and access to sexual reproductive health (SRH).
Through comprehensive teacher-training initiatives, the project dubbed Our Rights, Our Lives, Our Future (O3) Plus is being implemented in collaboration with ministries of education and health from 33 countries in the region.
In a statement, Unesco assistant director-general for education Ms Stefania Giannini, said: “I would like to make a call to action to our leaders in Sub-Saharan Africa to allocate enough domestic resources to safeguard the gains we have made and to protect the positive education and health outcomes of this generation.”
Having recently launched the second phase of the initiative, which will span to 2027, the project stands out as the largest school-based programme on education for health and well-being in Africa.
Throughout the second phase, the O3 Plus programme will heighten its emphasis on youth agency, parental engagement, social norms transformation and community mobilisation.
It will also intensify efforts to contact hard-to-reach young people, starting with those left furthest behind.
