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Complications from pregnancy and childbirth are a leading cause of death among 15-19-year-old women in developing regions, where one-third of girls are married before 18.
Young women are also often forced to drop out of school when they become pregnant, limiting their ability to earn an income.
Some people are working tirelessly to make sure their peers get access to reproductive and sexual healthcare services and one of them is this young leader, Maureen Oduor.
Ms. Maureen Odour is a bold internationally renowned pro choice ASRH activist, young leader and Development Specialist born and raised in Kenya, with over eight years’ experience working directly in grass root communities, advancing adolescent girls and women access to reproductive health rights and needs.
Currently she works with Service Health and Development for People Living Positively with HIV/AIDS (SHDEPHA+) Tanzania as ASRH regional Coordinator. Prior to joining SHDEPHA+, she worked on youth mobilization at African Peace Ambassadors Tanzania and KMET in Kenya.
She recently spoke at the Women Deliver conference which held in Switzerland last month.
Additionally, she has expertise in E – health RH advocacy and youth participation in RH through storytelling in form of Films. Maureen is one of Marie Stopes International youth ambassadors and Women Deliver Young Leader alumnae.
Maureen Oduor grew up in a small village in rural Kenya where she and her six siblings lived with her mother in a mud-walled, thatched-roof hut. Without electricity, Maureen struggled to study at night by candle light. Her father had a job over 200 miles away with the Nairobi railroad, leaving her mother, who worked as a farmer, to “struggle to gather basics like food” for all seven children. According to Maureen, “I qualified to go to better schools, but they cost a lot of money, so I couldn’t go there.”
Her mother had never heard of family planning, but Maureen, who at 30 is now college-educated and a senior staff member at a Tanzanian health NGO, says that without access to contraceptives and comprehensive sexual education, “I wouldn’t be here. I could not have gone to school, I could not have gotten my degree, and I would not be working. I would be in the village, maybe married to a very old man who gave my family two or three cows. All this happened because I’m able to plan my reproduction; I’m able to plan my life.”
Today, Maureen is a sexual and reproductive health advocate fighting for expanded voluntary contraceptive information and services for adolescents in Tanzania. The country has one of the youngest populations in the world, with almost half of all citizens under the age of 15. Maureen became motivated to advocate for reproductive rights after her best friend at boarding school bled to death due to complications from an unsafe abortion. “A group of 10 students …. We tried carrying this girl to reach the health facilities … unfortunately, on reaching the facility we lost this life in the hands of our students.” The loss of her best friend spurred her to action and sparked her to ask, “‘Why did this girl have to go for an unsafe abortion?’ It is because we never had access to family planning. Pregnancy was equal to girls being chased out of school. She wanted to remain and study, and then she paid for it with her life.” “From that time,” she added, “I decided to break the silence.”
Now Maureen spreads her knowledge of reproductive health throughout sub-Saharan Africa to help adolescent women understand their options and take control of their lives. “People look at contraception as planning families, but me, I look at it as planning a future. It has helped me have a future that is constructed.”
Sources: United Nations Foundation, Women Deliver conference.
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