Menstrual hygiene is essential for all girls. As important as it is, menstrual health and hygiene for vulnerable girls and women in host and refugee communities in West Nile have not been given much attention.
Lack of knowledge about menstrual management and access to affordable menstrual products have had a significant impact on the lives of adolescent girls, leading them to use unhygienic sanitary alternatives such as old dirty clothes, old newspapers, and torn mattresses as sanitary pads. The use of these hazardous materials increases their risk of infection. Due to stigma, many girls avoid public places such as schools, putting their education at risk and this has contributed to low primary school completion and retention rate
Evidence indicates that many girls drop out of school or are absent from school for significant periods of time due to lack of pads. This means that over 12million Ugandan girls miss up to 8 days of study each school term and 11% of the total learning days in a year due to challenges related to menstruation-(Uganda EMIS report (2011).
According to a report by the Guardian 2014, about 70% of women and girls in Uganda cannot afford sanitary pads, none reusable sanitary pads sold locally are extremely expensive for school girls, a unit pack costs about 5,000 Uganda shillings which translates to approximately 60,000 Uganda shillings per girl per year.
Many schools and refugee communities in West Nile districts continue to have poor WASH facilities and struggle to access menstrual hygiene materials such as sanitary pads, clean water, and private changing spaces coupled with community beliefs about menstruation being unclean and infectious, which makes girls fear being embarrassed or teased at school, thus resulted into many young girls missing school.
AFOD Intervention
In a bid to improve primary school completion and retention rate for girls, AFOD in collaboration with ViiV Health Care Foundation UK and Positive Action under the Reproductive Health project has prioritized equipping school girls with sustainable skills on making re-usable sanitary pads and educating them on menstrual hygiene management to ensure every girl child reach their full potential through education in 12 primary schools in Adjumani and Moyo/Obongi equipped with sewing machines.
We have been able to integrate health education into the school activities. Health clubs have been formed with the support of health teachers and trained senior women teachers to assist in teaching adolescents about menstrual health.
The Impact of menstrual management in schools
