Stories from Yombo Vocational and Rehabilitation Centre for Youth with Disabilities
At UNFPA, it is our vision to leave no one behind. We are working to create a world where everyone has access to sexual and reproductive health and rights – with particular emphasis on everyone. Yombo Vocational and Rehabilitation Centre for Youth with Disabilities (Yombo) in Tanzania stands as a leading example of this vision. The center is under the Prime Minister’s Office for Labor, Employment, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities in Tanzania.
Yombo is a colorful oasis in the outskirts of Dar es Salaam, where sign-language is spoken across the schoolyard and students are considerate and adept in assisting each other. Two of the students, Amir and Lisa, are walking arm in arm: Amir showing his presence in case guidance is needed, Lisa walking confidently with her mobility cane towards the que to the chai. No one, here, is left behind.
Lisa explains how Yombo became a new opportunity for her to complete her education, despite her vision imparity. Before Yombo, she completed Form Four,
To the students, Yombo has been more than an educational institution – it is also a safe space, where they feel protected from the rejection and discrimination they face in their communities. Yombo fosters an inclusive space where the students make new friends, have access to rehabilitation programs, and receive educational, life skills and vocational training in various trades or professions that can support them both inside and outside the center. Lisa dreams of taking her gardening skills into the agricultural sector. At Yombo, she is taught how to grow vegetables and plants, and that it can be done with a mobility cane in hand.
Amir describes how Yombo has helped him start his dream of becoming a businessman. At Yombo, he is a part of running the chicken farm and has sold over 900 chickens during his time at the center. Training in agriculture and livestock-keeping is one of the courses on the Yombo curriculum. Other courses offered to the students include
Inclusion is at the heart of Yombo. What also lies in the center of Yombo, is its health facility. As a part of UNFPA’s Safeguarding Young People program, supported by the Embassy of Switzerland, UNFPA procured medical equipment supplies and refurbished the waiting lounge of the facility. This way, the students of Yombo, as well as the community outside the center, are sheltered from the baking sun, as they wait to receive health services.
The students highlight the convenience of having the health center located in Yombo’s compound. They mention how having easy access to health services and medicine has helped them receive timely and appropriate medical care and referrals where necessary. In addition to the students at Yombo, the health facility also serves two wards (Kiwalani and Minazi mirefu) with a catchment area population of about 16,000. Yombo is a step towards a more inclusive future. Just like Amir and Lisa, walking arm in arm, let’s continue to take these steps together, leaving no one behind.
About Safeguard Young People
Safeguard Young People (SYP) is a regional flagship youth program that started in 2013 with a focus on selected countries in Southern Africa, including, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The program expanded to Eastern Africa countries (Tanzania, Rwanda, Mozambique, and Angola) in 2021. Its goal is to improve the health and well-being of adolescents and young people aged 10-24 years, with emphasis on improving sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and gender equality among young people.
The program compliments UNFPA’s existing work on improving the sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights (SRHR) status of young people, and it is implemented in five selected regions in Tanzania Mainland, that is, Kigoma, Shinyanga, Simiyu, Dodoma, Dar es Salaam; and in Zanzibar (Unguja and Pemba).
The Programme has a governance and management architecture agreed upon with the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) through the Embassy of Switzerland in Tanzania which is co-funding this program with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). At the National level, the program focuses on creating a conducive political, legal, and policy environment and developing the capacity for Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights and Youth Participation.
It also supports the strengthening of effective coordination and partnerships in Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar. At the Regional and District levels, the interventions focus on strengthening institutions' capacity to deliver quality Comprehensive Sexuality Education/Life Skills (CSE) and Social Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) for in-school and out-of-school young people. It also supports the scaling up of integrated youth-friendly service provision in selected regions of Kigoma, Shinyanga, Simiyu, Dodoma, Dar es Salaam, and Zanzibar (Unguja and Pemba).
