Donate sanitary pads to 500 schoolgirls in Uganda

Like any regular visits to our beneficiaries, that is, the poor urban school girls, we have been received with both tears of joy and sadness which is inevitable in the kids’ eyes and that reminds me of my lady colleague who at one time narrated how it had become a tag of war every month as it soon came to her next menstrual periods. Leaving her pain, a side, it challenged her to manage the situation considering her lack of menstrual materials like sanitary wears and the whole process of between 3-5 days of her menstrual cycle which some times seem longer than her expected days.

On our every visit to the above-mentioned beneficiaries (poor urban schools) the mood was almost related, until this time when the girls seemed to be excited but unfortunately disappointed and under struggle to be firm again at school. This was when some of them confessed that when they are in accessibility for sanitary pads (menstrual materials), their health and lifestyle improve a lot while at school.

And this appears that to a large extent our interventions have positively impacted the life of school girls through positioning them in a health state that enables them to attend classes regularly thus influencing the class performances (grades), builds their confidence amongst their peers following the improved sanitation and health during menstrual period.

The young school girls undergoing reproductive growth is a regular normal involvement exposing them to their womanhood experience whenever they face first menstrual cycle commonly in early teen age. However it’s still worrying when girls confess that when things turn upside down with insufficient menstrual health knowledge and management materials such as sanitary wears (sanitary pads) , they end up improvising with unhealth and unsuitable materials to maintain the situation for example  Nabuma confessed how she had been using toilet paper tissues and hand kerchiefs when her mother was unable to provide her with sanitary pads in time as she was facing financial constraints to take care for the family as a single mother who has got no reliable source of income.

Moreso, a lot of girls who face menstrual cycles for their first time have less knowledge about their body changes surrounded by stigma from both female and male classmates which creates a gap for general sensitisation amongst school health administration team and pupils to allow everyone a right to menstrual health management knowledge.

Furthermore, the previous engagements on menstrual health management through UYSTO in partnership with the host urban poor schools of Kigobe primary school and Tula Primary school-Kawempe has been impactful in a sense that the cases of school dropouts by girls reduced compared to the previous years and there has been a regular attendance of classes (by girl child) which has registered a steady progress in performance of girls during end of year examinations for example, the headteacher of Tula primary school appreciated for having contributed in education of young girls (girl child education) by promoting their menstrual health which influenced the overwhelming performance of girls in general school activities for instance a number of girls had been among the best performers in end of year examinations most especially primary four, five and six and she expected good results for the girls in primary seven who wrote national Primary Leaving Examinations (P.L.E).

Therefore, the regular project activity coordination, monitoring and evaluation has achieved a lot towards the implementation of the main objectives of the project through empowering young girls in urban poor schools to access education with zero menstrual challenges in concluded provision of sanitary pads that maintain their bodies healthy while keeping them away from menstrual stigma.

We are living a post covid impacts and this is worse than covid lockdowns. The support rendered came in the right time when the beneficiaries needed it. Unlike previously when targeted Namungona Kigobe primary school and Uganda Youth Skills Training Organization (UYSTO) young girls, this time we included Tula primary school Kawempe.   A total of 130 beneficiaries has been reached, during the second term but this would cover up a period of 3 months.

Truth to be told, whenever UYSTO conducts field activities, the happiness is exhibited in the faces of young girls. Their testimonies have it all, the likes of Nakato, she confessed how she was using toilet papers, old cloths and sometimes her young brother's old stockings which were all never safe, reliable and sustainable. So, its worth to note that the provision of sanitary pads, usage and general awareness information save young girls from regularabsenteeism.

Great appreciations go to our donors who are always able to respond to our cause and cry for help with a drastic support of providing funds for conductingawareness, buying sanitary pads and promote the menstrual hygiene management lessonsto poor urban undergoing school girl child in our catchment areas.

Besides having been able to reach for 130 girls in three urban schools with sanitary pads and menstrual hygiene management information, there are other challenges in relation to menstrual health for example disposing off the used sanitary pads. Along side the project, we plan to upload fundraising project for construction of incinerators at the two beneficiary locations.

This is valuable enough to appreciate every one’s contribution in every capacity towards empowering and bridging the next generation with the empowerment of young girls through promoting their menstrual health, where tendencies of absenteeism from school and missing classes due to unmonitored and uninformed menstruation periods, would be managed by theschool management teams. Following the previous trends of sanitary pads support to the girls, its manifested that numbers of girls in schools have increased and class performance enhanced. For sure its worthy to support a girl child’s education.

Dear our beloved donors, the partners and the well-wisher’s, we are happy to connect once again with your kindness to continue supporting our cause of supporting 500 school girls in Uganda with sanitary pads.

Thank you very much for the wonderful support you have rendered to this cause, however i would like note that since the pandemic, the things have for sure not remained the same. There has been series of financial values lose, price fluctuations of the commodities and this has even affected the local support that we could be receiving from the a few project well-wishers. 

It's been a while without hearing from you our beloved donors of this program, but now happy that we are in the periods when the pandemic is slow and that everyone is trying to settle in their respective business.

When the pandemic, hit the world, we had to keep our beneficiary target groups receiving the support and for that case therefore allow me to thank those who have been following up and donating in spite of the financial challenges met due to the pandemic.

The project, had added more other beneficiaries by the time pandemic broke out and this is a quit big number of young girls to support and following our trend of fundraising, we thought we could go along well, but as i said above due to the pandemic, things changed gradually and we have not been able to reach out to all those 500 girls.

It's still a challenging time with reaching out with support to these young girls. We now call upon every one, the volunteers, individuals donors, well-wishers, cooperate companies, embassies globally, organizations and the owners of companies like #Facebook, #Microsoft, #WhatsApp, #twitter, #Instagram, #LinkedIn, #google, among others to support towards the cause of supporting school going child in poor urban schools in Uganda, for practicing a personal hygiene menstrual management for a good leaning conducive environment while at school.

Any big companies willing to support us in buying equipment and materials to support the schools with materials and training, such that they can start producing re-usable sanitary pads at school levels, can help in terms of sustainability purposes and duplication of the idea to other schools. This will tremendously mitigate early children school drops, marriages and pregnancies. We are currently training community based organizations to help reach out to those in the areas of urban schools that we can support with this little support secured from our beloved donors on GlobalGiving.

We also know that if we educate a girl child, we shall have educated and empowered the entire world.

Thank you for all the past support and we now need your support more than previous period, be kind and be with us,

                                Just imagine you being one of this cause.

N.B, we are also happy to announce to you that our friends from Norway (Firda VGS) have helped us to secure a piece of land where Uganda Youth Skills Training Organization will own its home from the rentals, and we plan to put things like, a model community vocational training center, technical vocational industrial training service, International Volunteer house, HIV/AIDS youths and women simple clinic and UYSTO administrative offices. We would like to categorically mention to you that has it not been you trusting us with your support and references, we would have reached at this stage.

Relaxing on the mission due to an interruption is common to most of the mission bearers. Our project " Donate sanitary pads to 500 schoolgirls in Uganda" like any other projects affected by the pandemic, it has been the victim. The pandemic affected our project, not only in resource mobilization but also to the beneficiaries. Schools have been off functioning in spite of lifting the lockdown.

Most girls that the project has been supporting have been displaced in different locations within the country but UYSTO still made some efforts to follow up those that stayed within their localities of origin. The lack of menstrual hygiene management material support has manifested many young girls not within only our areas of reach but the rest of the regions in Uganda getting unplanned, wanted both pregnancies and marriages.

The situation worsened and we decided to ask for UYSTO volunteer extra support alongside our friends from German “Kids Rights” to render awareness campaigns to the young people’s communities we target. The campaigns looked at domestic violence as result of unwanted and planned pregnancies, prevention, solutions and menstrual material support to girl child.

This was done alongside distribution of the sanitary pads to those that we could find in their communities. In spite of all the challenges, UYSTO still aims higher to fulfill its mission of supporting a menstrual hygiene management practices among the targeted girl child.

To our dear donors, this is the time that the project "Donate sanitary pads to 500 schoolgirls in Uganda" most needs your anchorage. We know that the economies all over the world are affected but one by one makes a bundle, that one dollar you undermine, with someone's 1 dollar, keep the girl child in school, especially in this time when the country (Uganda) is looking at re-entry of the students to schools.  " a giving hand is the blessed hand" imagine supporting the girls to have a friendly learning environment with friendly personal menstrual hygiene management environment.

Join the drive and support a girl child to stay in school by donating to buy sanitary pads.