EMPOWER 650 UGANDAN GIRLS TO CREATE MENSTRUAL PADS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Menstrual hygiene is essential to girls’ and women’s health and well-being. Unfortunately, millions of girls and women worldwide lack access to proper menstrual hygiene facilities and products. The situation is worse in developing countries like Uganda.

Statistics indicate that 25.8 percent of teenage girls in Budaka district, our target area get pregnant before the age of 18. Our target sub-county, Iki-Iki is one of those with the highest teenage pregnancies at 156. The saddest part is that some of these girls give in to men just to get a packet of pads, and end up with unwanted pregnancy. Moreover, because of extreme poverty girls and young mothers use dirty pieces of cloth, dry banana leaves, and other unhygienic materials around them when in their menstrual cycle. So equipping them with skills in making re-usable sanitary pads does not only improve their menstrual hygiene but also boosts their self-esteem, and can help keep more girls in school longer.

At Ravens foundation, we tackle the barriers to safe menstrual hygiene management by training girls and women in making reusable menstrual pads.

INTRODUCTION

RAVENS FOUNDATION (RAF), is an indigenous non-government organization founded in 2018, with the aim of contributing to the process of transformational development in the lives of girls, women and their communities.

VISION: Fanning the Wisdom of Motherhood and Nobility of Womanhood.

MISSION: Empowering women and girls to manage their personal hygiene with dignity, promoting health, education and economic opportunities through counseling, skills training and advocacy. 

BACKGROUND

The calling of motherhood is the most noble and important work in the world, and the most rewarding. Without this calling being done well, no one can effectively do anything in this world. Whether it be politicians, bankers, economists, clergy, name it; they all need good mothering in order to become people of substance.

Among the poorer communities in Uganda, Africa in general and the world over, women play an active role in day to day survival of their families. They bear the double burden of work in the house and in the farms. In our target area, of Budaka district in Uganda, more than 70% of the women and girls are either semi illiterate or totally illiterate, and they do not have any employable skills to help them earn a living.

Activities

Training sessions: The period covered in this report is from October 2024 to January 2025. It was quite a busy season for us especially given the festivities of Christmas and the New Year, but all the same we were able to have time for the girls. This time we intentionally focused on girls who were on school holiday. Our aim was to discuss issues related to personal hygiene and menstrual management, and climaxed with a two days training on making reusable menstrual pads. We registered a total attendance of sixteen (16) participants aged between 11-24years.

Strategic Planning: We undertook to draw a strategic plan for the next three years, which is 2025-2027. We will be focusing on four major priority areas, that is;

• Strengthening the capacity and quality of the Board of Directors.
• Creating financial stability
• Girl empowerment
• Skills building for better livelihoods.

Challenges

• Funding is still a big challenge for us and so we are struggling to maintain the volunteers because their time is now taken up looking for means of survival.
• We do not have a gazetted training centre as yet and so we keep operating in individual homes. January being a rainy season we had challenges finding an indoor space which could comfortably accommodate all the participants. We ended up in the living room of one of the volunteers, and the girls had to squeeze themselves to fit into the room.
• We experienced constant power outages during the sessions and that is why some of the photos appear dark and blurred.

• REPORT_FOR_THE_PERIOD_OCT2024JAN2025.pdf (PDF)
  
• Strategic Plan 2025-2027 (PDF)