Train 150 AGYW (10-24 Years) on Menstrual Hygiene

Summary:

African Child & Youth Development Initiative (ACYDI) has carried out a rally in one of the schools in Buwooya where over 1000 story books have been donated to the school. In efforts to increase the knowledge and bridge its gap and also improve attitude, practice and access to healthy menstrual materials. These books include but not limited to Menstrual health readers, manuals, Adolescents and Growth in series books as well as early childhood books. These are now part of the library and can be accessed whenever the AGYW need them. A school visit was conducted by African Child & Youth Development Initiative to check on the progress in form of teaching and learning environment for the AGYW and the school library. According to the available Buvuma district statistics, In Buvuma islands, there is inadequate menstrual facilities in both primary and secondary schools where a total of 95% of the head teachers and 95% of the senior head teachers stated that they are not satisfied with menstrual facilities at their schools, Menstrual pads: Over 95% of the senior women teachers confirmed that there is no provision for menstrual pads to school girls. The opening up of the school library has increased access to information on human growth process, menstruation, wetdreaming for boys and how all these are managed to reduce embarrassment that would lead to school dropout and or frequent absenteeism thus improving the learner's performance since they can concentrate in class.

Achievements/Actions taken:

1)      There is now enough space for the school library where the AGYW of Bukaali Community Primary School accessing the health books, and other users both from the school and the community hence increasing their knowledge.

2)      We have so far trained 8 staff (5 from the school and 3 from the community) who have received training on library and information basics to support the AGYW and other users from the school and community.

3)      Retrained 15 members of Village Health Teams/VHTs from the villages in order to raise awareness among girls and women in 10 villages.

4)      Retrained the 25 Adolescents (15F:10M) from the school's health club on Menstrual health management (MHM) and reminded of their responsibilities in supporting their colleagues to avoid embarrassment, encouraged them to remain in school and to also cascade the information to their homes where the menstruating girls are more at risk of being married off by their parents when they start menstruating.

Challenges and suggested solutions:

 1)      Since it’s the first library in Buvuma islands, previously, students had no way to easily access these books. Similarly, the school has no laptops, and access to solar power is also a challenge.

2)      Rats are prevalent can easily destroy the books if they are not securely stored.

3)      There is increased number of AGYW both in school and from the community which is too high compared to the books so far acquired. The organisation together with the school will need to continue mobilising for resources and lobbying for more adolescent’s books for better coverage.

4)      Due to lack of electricity in the entire Buvuma district, it is not possible to create an electronic library. However, it is recommended that solar systems should be provided to the school in order to create an Electronic-Library.

5)      The schools in Buvuma islands don’t have computers due to lack of electricity and the entire population largely depends on the solar systems.

6)      Capacity building training is still needed to the teachers and students on how to successfully use the library.  ACYDI will continue providing capacity building to the students and teachers in the usage and management of the library services.

7)      Additionally, the reading culture isn't yet good in the local schools and these users may need to have frequent support. However, the trained 8 people will keep supporting the books users and also the trained adolescents will support their classmates and those from the community to get the information they need regarding menstrual health management and growth.

8)      Accessing the affordable training materials to train the AGYWs on the real practical making of re-usable pads and also for the communities hasn't been easy due to insufficient resources. Thus still finding it hard to access the cheap and hygienic pads.