Smile Again Families, Foundation is a registered non-profit based in Masaka city operating in Greater Masaka region. It works in partnership with Smile Again Families International, a registered non-profit 501c3 based in the US.

Smile Again Families Foundation, operates a safe shelter for homeless teenage mothers and others are supported from their communities through solidarity groups.

Uganda is ranked as the 16^th among 25 countries with the highest rates of child/teenage marriage in the world (UNFPA-UNICEF, 2019). One out of five women in Uganda engage in sexual activity before age 15, 7.3 per cent are married before the age of 15 (UDHS 2016; UNICEF 2020). Child marriage is not only a human rights violation, but also contributes significantly to teenage pregnancy and poor maternal health to the affected child mothers. The proportion of teenagers aged 15-19 years who have begun childbearing remains high, though it has progressively declined over time from 43 per cent in 1995, 31 per cent in 2001, 25 per cent in 2006 and 24 per cent in 2011 (UBOS, 2018). The teenage pregnancy rate has stagnated at 25% since 2016 (UDHS 2016; UNFPA 2021).

34.8% of the Uganda’s population are adolescents and there has been an increase of teenage pregnancies to 25% which is nearly 3 out of 10 teenage girls between 15-19 years who get pregnant or are already mothers. 1 in 10 teenage girls are married off before they are 15 years according to the ministry of health. (twitter@softpowernews Paul Ampurire, November 26th 2018).

Uganda is predominantly patriarchal society with high levels of strong negative socio-cultural stereotypes among the communities, many of these stereotypes aggravate gender inequality against girls and women. In rural areas, 24% of girls experience early pregnancy compared to 16% of wealthier households and 21% of urban girls (UNICEF, 2020).

Teenage pregnancy profoundly affects girl’s life trajectories. It hampers their psycho-social development, contributes to poor health outcomes for girls and their offspring’s, negatively affects their educational and employment opportunities, and contributes to the perpetuation of inter-generational cycles of poor health and poverty culminating to gross domestic violence for the teenage mothers.

Many of the mothers are victims of sexual abused or abusive relationships which causes the family members to throw them out because the girls can’t speak out. As Smile Again Families Foundation, we operate a safe shelter for some homeless teenage mothers and others are supported from their community through solidarity groups.