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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
