Sanitary Pads Keep Ugandan Girls in School

The focus of this GlobalGiving project is training adolescent girls from poor, rural communities around Kibale National Park in Uganda to make reusable menstrual pads (RUMPs) in order to help them better manage their periods and stay in school. However, this project is embedded within Kasiisi Project’s holistic girls support program. We work with 16 partner primary schools and each year design our girls programming around expressed needs.

Here is how we supported girls in 2023:

• Directly trained more than 800 students plus teachers to make RUMPs from affordable, locally available materials
• Arranged for students to share their new RUMPs-making skills with parents (more than 2,000) and other students (more than 6,000)
• Ensured schools have girls-only latrines that provide privacy and a washing area to maintain good hygiene during menstruation
• Provided instruction on a range of topics in our weekly after-school health clubs (620 students) with content geared toward keeping girls safe, healthy, and informed (e.g., growth and puberty, teen pregnancy, child marriage, STDs, healthy relationships, proper nutrition, and growing food) 
• Trained 6 health leaders and peer educators in each school so girls have a resource for accurate information about health-related issues
• Constructed “secret gardens” at schools to provide a place where girls, peer educators, and teachers can talk privately and openly
• Created a series of posters for display at schools to help lift the stigma around menstruation
• Organized 1,239 vaccinations against Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) to protect girls against cancer-causing infections and precancers
• Provided scholarships so 24 girls could attend a quality secondary school, university or trade school. In our region, most families cannot afford to educate their children beyond primary school. Boys’ education is often prioritized over girls’ education because boys are thought to have greater earning potential. Girls out of school often get married early.
• Provided a cash award for 4 top-performing girls in math and science to encourage more girls to go into these typically male-dominated fields of study
• Provided bike riding instruction for girls, which is a life skill useful for transportation to and from school but also to avoid sexual harassment while walking on the road

The Kasiisi Project has been supporting schools and girls in rural Uganda for 27 years using this holistic approach. As a result, our schools are the among the best in the region and girls in our partner schools outperform girls in neighboring schools. We are grateful for your support through our RUMPs project, which plays an important role in shaping brighter futures for girls through education. We are excited for new programs in 2024 and hope we can count on your continued support in the new year.

Links:

• Kasiisi Project website

In Term 2 of the 2023 school year, 379 students in 12 primary schools bordering Kibale National Park in Uganda participated in our trainings on the making of Reusable Menstrual Pads (RUMPs) as part of our after-school student health club programming. We also held health fairs in 11 of these schools, which gave health club members the opportunity to demonstrate to their peers, teachers, parents, and other community members what they have been learning (e.g., nutrition, organic farming, personal hygiene, recycling)—including their new RUMPs-making skills. Through this public event, we were able to raise awareness about what health clubs are teaching and to encourage the implementation of these activities at home. Parents were thrilled see their kids in action, and attendees confirmed that club members are actively teaching their family members and friends how to make RUMPs. So the scope of our training program keeps expanding, thanks to the initiative of these amazing kids! Our health fairs reached 6,000 children and 1,500 parents plus many others. Because these events were extremely popular, five more schools will host health fairs in October 2023.