By Male Marvin
JINJA – To address absenteeism among girl students due to menstruation and dropping out of schools after attaining puberty, the first of its kind menstrual hygiene management programme has been organised in a section of schools by gospel musician Coopy Bly alias Emmanuel Edwin Kusasira and his wife, Anne Marie Kusasira.
The couple co-ordinated the initiative at Kakira High School in Jinja district through their charity organisation, Yimba Uganda.
“We ran a Menstrual Hygiene Management workshop for over 480 young women,” they said on Wednesday.
Coopy Bly and his team were also able to distribute 200 reusable menstrual hygiene packs to some of the ladies in attendance and promised to return in the coming months to give those who missed.
“150 of the reusable menstrual hygiene packs were lovingly made by our amazing Tailoring Fashion and Design students and 50 were donated by our awesome friends at ISee Solutions,”
Students within rural areas need not less than three pairs of reusable pads which can be used for an academic term. The pads are able to hold for up to eight hours for normal flow and have a storage bag where one can comfortably keep a used one.
According to a report released in 2013 by Build Africa, statistics indicated that 30% of the girls abandoned school for lack of sanitary pads. Menstrual hygiene has had impact on girl-child retention in schools.
On average, the report revealed that 29.7% of the adolescent girls said they miss at least four days per cycle out of the 80 school days spent at school.
Another 24.3% of the girls admitted to being stigmatised whenever they soiled their uniforms and as a result, they opted to stay at home until the end of their period.
Yimba Uganda in August saw a successful week at Kikaaya Secondary School teaching the girls how to create their own reusable menstrual hygiene packs!
The organisation said the girls are now be able to go on and teach other girls at their school how to create their own as well.
