Acholi Girls' Fairer Future

Building Girls Through Reproductive Health Education

Imagine you were a girl sitting in class, and suddenly your friend tells you that there is blood on the back of your skirt.


This is how many girls come to know about their menstrual periods. In our 2019 survey, 16% of girls said nobody ever spoke to them about menstruation before they started their periods. Most girls who were spoken to learned from a teacher. 

​The goals of this ministry are to increase the rates of continuation of girls to secondary education and to help girls know the love God has for them.

Since 2014, our team has been working to get sanitary pads into the hands of as many girls as possible. Before schools were closed due to COVID-19 for almost two full years, over 22,000 had been reached. Distributions are also an opportunity to talk to the girls about how what is happening to them is not a mistake - they are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), and the Lord has a plan for each of them!

Looking Ahead and Shifting Gears

In the third term of 2019, we completed an evaluation exercise of the ministry to assess the impact this work has had on girls' attendance and on girls' attitudes and feelings towards menstruation and themselves. The evaluation was also an opportunity to explore other possible approaches that we have been thinking of in how to make the ministry more sustainable. Here were key lessons learned:

These findings mean that in the next couple of years, we will be piloting different approaches to try to address factors we are currently not addressing (like pregnancy and child marriage), and hopefully improving our pads design into a marketable and affordable product that will be within the reach of many more girls to access themselves, instead of disposable pads that are used once and thrown away.