By Ritah Mukasa
According to research by Build Africa, millions of girls skip up to 20% of their school year simply because they cannot afford sanitary pads.
25% of the girls and women in rural settings recycle old clothes while others use traditional materials like backcloth, banana fibers, papers and tissue with 10% of the girls under 15 years of age depending on those makeshift items to manage their menstrual cycle.
However, many girls in Uganda cannot afford to buy mainstream sanitary products to manage menstruation, an integral and normal part of their existence.
Also, some girls withdraw from school and community
activities or face stigma, isolation, embarrassment, and stress.
The research continues to indicate that on average, Ugandan
school girls reported missing 24 days out of 220 learning days in a year
translating into 11% of school days missed due to menstruation.
24.3% of the girls admit to being stigmatized whenever they
soiled their uniforms and as a result, they opted to stay at home until after
the period. Most of the girls eventually drop out of school.
Due to the high number of school dropouts, the level of child
marriages and teenage pregnancies increase.
Meanwhile, over 60,000 girls countrywide will no longer face
the above challenges thanks to Days for Girls, an international organization
that has not only availed them with reusable sanitary pads, but they have also
trained them to make their own…Read more>>
