At least 100 adolescent girls from the Katanga slum in Kampala have got training in reusable pad making as part of efforts to promote menstrual hygiene management by the Lions Club of Kampala New Century.
According to Brendah Namugga Mubeezi, the president of the Lions Club of Kampala New Century, the move is aimed at ensuring adolescent girls stay in school even during menstruation period, contrary to what normally happens to girls in slum areas during this period.
“We are targeting girls between the age of nine to 18 and training them on menstrual hygiene management. With a sanitary pad going for between shs3000 and shs5000, many of the adolescent girls in slum areas are economically not able to afford them. We therefore chose to train them to make pads for themselves from locally available materials. That way, they can make more pads and cheaply,”Namugga said.
Quoting World Health Organisation statistics that show that 77% of Ugandan girls miss 2 to 3 days a month in class because of menstrual hygiene related issues and one of them being lack of sanitary pads, the president of the Kampala Lions Club New Century said their goal is to create awareness among adolescent girls, especially in slum areas.
“We want to skill them on how to make their own sanitary pads so they don’t miss school but also have a ripple effect by training others in their communities. We also want them to know menstrual periods can be easily managed.”
She explained they will train 200 other adolescent girls in Lwengo and Iganga districts in what she termed as a pilot to see if they can roll it out to other areas.
Namugga said they had earlier done a similar training but with girls with disability , noting that funds used for the training are part of those got earlier in October through a fundraising .
She said they have also partnered with Stanbic Bank and Byomire Development Foundation.
According to Assistant Superintendent of Police, Brian Agaba, the Police Community Liaison Officer at Wandegeya Police division, such efforts help in breaking the crime chain.
“As Police, we have on several occasions received cases in the child and family protection office where children have been defiled or sexually harassed on investigation, it is indicted the men have deceived girls with money to buy pads but end up sexually harassing them. This training will empower adolescent girls to end such crimes,”Agaba said.
The Wandegeya division Community Liaison officer commended the Lions Club of Kampala New Century for the initiative that he said ought to be rolled out in all slums as way of helping in mitigating crime.