Donate sanitary pads to 8400 schoolgirls in Uganda

In 2023, Uganda Youth Training Organization (UYSTO) made a series of follow up activities in one of our beneficiary schools “Ttula Primary school-Kawempe” and found out that most of the girls in upper classes (primary four to primary seven) had dropped out of school and the few who had remained also were experiencing hard times with regular absenteeism and stigma from their male counterparts for the fact that they were finding it challenging to effectively manage their menstrual periods. This was attributed to lack of support from their parents who are always struggling with other basic needs and UYSTO who had come up as a savior with provision of sanitary pads funded by GlobalGiving, had taken long to come back with the support in form of the pads.

During our engagements we decided to discuss with young girls, their male counterparts, school administration and responsible teachers who expressed that due to the fact that students were no longer receiving sanitary wears, the issues of absenteeism and school dropout were increasingly at a high rate. Whereas, one of the pupils narrated on how her parents had failed to provide her with sanitary pads instead she decided to look for old clothes, cut and get some pieces to use during her menstruation periods. However, one of the boys narrated, “My sister whom we study together in this school is stealing my stockings and use them when in periods and when I asked her why bad manners, she said mummy don’t have money to buy sanitary pads”.

During the discussions with the school administration about how the support from Uganda Youth Skills Training Organization funded by GlobalGiving had affected the girls’ performance at school, one of the teachers was disappointed and worried in her feedback whereby she was concerned that the support had taken long to come again. In addition, the school head teacher said that in their reports, girl’s performance in class had declined, many girls had dropped out from school, absenteeism of girls due to menstrual periods also increased, decreased enrollment of girls in upper classes due to lack of sanitary pads support.

The tragedy even was expressed in the beneficiaries’ eyes which constituted the psycho-pain they were going through in their struggles.