Globalgiving Report

I was asked to write the following report for the globalgiving website which gives an update on our project. Check out the organizations globalgiving page at www.globalgiving.org/projects/girl-support-project-in-uganda-africa/ and click on the reports tab to find the article which has photos taken during the health talks and activities. I have just copied the article without photos for this blog post.

Health Talks

~Cheers

Sanitary Pads and Health Talks Keep Ugandan Girls in School

During the second week of each month, the Girls Peer Education Program travels to five local primary schools in the Kibale Forest School District to distribute sanitary pads to girls in Primary 3 to Primary 7. These monthly distributions of sanitary pads help keep Ugandan girls in schools who might otherwise miss anywhere from three to seven days of school because of their monthly periods or the extreme but not unusual case of dropping out of school completely because of it. Kasiisi Primary School Headmistress Lydia Kasenene says “they stay at home because they are embarrassed and feel shame because of this very natural event. If their periods start during the school day, they may bleed through their dresses and won’t participate in class activities because they have to stand up and they may get made fun of.” The program distributes about 900 sanitary pads monthly to the five different primary schools. The pads give the girls confidence, independence, and the ability to be active all the time and participate fully in school just like the boys.

Girls Testing The Tippy Taps

The monthly pad distribution also gives Kibale Forest Schools Program Nurse Eve Basemera and United States Peace Corps Health Volunteer Katelyn Wigmore, the opportunity to give health talks on various subjects from hygiene, menstruation, nutrition, early pregnancy, boy’s and girl’s development, abuse, marriage, and HIV/AIDS. The girls can ask questions and receive answers in a safe and learning environment. Many girls do not have an environment at home where they can ask questions and many times their mothers or relative or close friends do not know the answers to certain questions because they do not know either they never learned or were never told.
The distribution of pads and talks also gives the girls the chance to have hands on experience, such as learning how to use a sanitary pad, learning how to wash their hands with hand washing demonstrations and also learning to build tippy taps that are stationed outside their schools pit latrines to wash their hands. At each of the schools in November as the program focused on hygiene, they did an activity where after the tippy taps were built they brought a couple boys from the school to provide the girls with a teaching opportunity to teach the boys how to use the tippy tap and wash their hands. The girls are given skills that they can take back to share with their families and help create healthier environments at their homes, at school, or in the community. Girls gain confidence and information needed in their everyday lives. Kasenene puts it with a smile “they are becoming smarter than the boys.”

This coming year will focus on continuing to provide the girls with information on health topics to better their health, learn about Life Skills, and introduce different activities like Grassrootsoccer and peer education. The program hopes to combine with the Boys Peer Education program to do activities, also to help provide a better understanding of each other and hopefully will lead to more respect.

We would like to thank all the donors for their generosity as it helps change lives and when we can change one person we change a generation.

Short Update

Hiking In Kisoro

Hello Everyone! 

Sorry to be MIA for the last couple of weeks or I should say over a month - it has been a very crazy busy emotional and hectic time here in Uganda. October went by very quickly with lots of activities and planning for first term of 2015. I traveled to Kisoro in South West corner of Uganda for Peace Corps Uganda 50th Anniversary Celebration (new blog with photos will be up next month or whenever I have internet long enough to upload photos). I also was able to visit Queen Elizabeth National Park with 28 pupils and 28 teachers from the schools we work with on the environmental conservation field trip (again blog with photos will be up soon) got to see some amazing wildlife and lots of elephants and some wonderful people passionate about teaching and conservation. We also had a 4.5 earthquake at four in the morning on Halloween - BOO! I am fine if we never have one of those again.

This past week I attended Peace Corps In-Service Training in Kampala which brought together volunteers from my group and their counterparts for four days of crazy busy exhausting informational training. It was great seeing the volunteers I had not seen in a while and hearing all the challenges and successes they are having at their sites. We did shoot a music video for Christmas so keep an eye out for that around the Christmas holiday. Eve and I learned a lot and also got to go to TASO at Mulargo Hospital in Kamapla. The AIDS Support Organization or TASO as they call it, is doing some amazing work with and for people who are living with HIV/AIDs. The members are all dealing with HIV or AIDS. It was great to meet so many people who are passionate about helping their fellow man. Great experience. So like I said a short update on what has been happening. 

Will post again soon! Cheers