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Building Girls Through Reproductive Health Education
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.
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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.
We seek to do this through teaching girls and parents about menstruation, the value of education, and God's love, and through working with schools to increase access to sanitary pads. Currently, this ministry has helped over 28,000 girls gain access to materials to manage their menstruation.
Moving Towards Sustainability
Moving Towards Sustainability
Between 2014 and 2019, we had a distribution approach that focused on getting sanitary pads into the hands of as many girls as possible. During distributions, girls were also given a brief orientation in how to use the pads, and told of God's great love for them and the importance of education.
In our 2019 survey, we found that more families may be able to afford paying for washable sanitary pads than previously thought. We narrowed down the number of schools we are engaging and comparing two different approaches: including washable sanitary pads as part of the school uniform (paid for by the parents) and teaching girls and their mothers how to sew their own washable sanitary pads.
What followed the completion of this survey was the COVID-19 pandemic. During the height of the pandemic, schools in Uganda closed for a full 2 years. Since re-opening, our focus has been on how to make this ministry more sustainable.
We also expanded our engagement with the girls and also with their parents. We developed a 6-lesson curriculum that includes not only teaches girls about menstrual hygiene, but also about other key topics that lead to girls not continuing with their education, such as early marriage and teen pregnancy.
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