‘I wanted to be a maid in Kampala. Now I’m chasing my medical dreams’

What the report says

Mercy Nyamungu, a 21-year-old mother of twins in Nebbi Municipality, Uganda, is back in school after a teenage pregnancy ended her education when she was 15. According to Nile Post, she dropped out in Primary Five, briefly considered leaving for Kampala to work as a housemaid, and felt her ambition of becoming a doctor had been lost.

The report says Nyamungu later found a place in the New Generation Healing and Empowerment Center, a second-chance education programme linked to former Nebbi District Woman MP Dr Betty Udongo Pacutho. The centre supports young mothers with tuition, feeding, accommodation, childcare and mentorship so they can resume formal schooling while their children are also cared for. Nyamungu was enrolled in Primary Seven in 2023 and says her children, Apio and Acen, are studying in the centre’s early-learning programme.

Nile Post describes the programme as giving her more than academic access: it also provided emotional support and a more stable routine for her family. Nyamungu says she now studies alongside parenting, helps her children with homework, and has regained confidence in her long-held goal of becoming a medical doctor. Her experience reflects a broader challenge in Uganda and elsewhere, where teenage mothers often struggle to return to school after pregnancy without support systems in place.