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Playlist: Laura Boosinger's Portfolio

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The Open Book (Series)

Produced by WART FM

Most recent piece in this series:

The Open Book - A Six-Part Podcast

From WART FM | Part of the The Open Book series | 02:15:51

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The highest rates of teen pregnancy in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa – and West and Central Africa lead the world in child marriage. This usually leaves girls and women in poverty and heavily dependent on others.

This six-part series looks at early childbearing in Rwanda – where child pregnancy is a serious problem. In 2018, nearly 20,000 girls between the ages of 15 and 19 got pregnant. That’s 25-hundred more than in 2017.

The series explores how culture and taboos, family, education and health play a role in how children grow up and what they become.

The episodes were produced in Butare, Rwanda, a rural area about two hours south of the capital, Kigali. The programs were produced by four Rwandan journalism students who attend the University of Rwanda in Huye. It includes interviews with young people, experts, and government officials. It follows the struggles of a teenage girl who got pregnant at 17, dropped out of school and is now trying to balance motherhood with livelihood.

The four young journalists, who speak English as a second language, provide narration for this first-of-its-kind podcast for Rwanda. They worked with native English speakers to improve their pronunciation.

The series was broadcast on three community-based radio stations across Rwanda in the Kinyarwanda language. 

It was produced during a podcast training project for young journalists to learn about health and development reporting designed by the Population Reference Bureau, training by Developing Radio Partners, and with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID.)