Many girls in rural Uganda stop attending school when they start menstruating, due to social stigma and lack of sanitary products. Before COVID-19, TILT provided funds for training and to purchase sewing machines and fabric to enable schoolgirls to sew reusable menstrual pads for their own use and for sale.

The COVID-19 lockdowns inhibited progress.

In 2024, TILT was able to provide $2600 for a safe menstrual hygiene room at one school in the Nebbi district to further address this need. The beneficiary community, excited about the opportunity this gives their daughters, have committed to continuing the program financially and in action. They plan to hold a cultural ceremony used for ratifying communal decisions.

In the Zombo district, seven of ten schools in which TILT-sponsored menstrual hygiene projects were started have continued successfully and independently, and one school is attempting to start commercial production.

Contact with the project in Nebbi District was hampered by the COVID-19 lockdown and personnel transfers. A government policy of transferring teachers every year or two has meant that all but one of the teachers trained to make pads are in different schools. They cannot count on having resources to continue pads in their new schools. Some are assigned to other projects.

SACLP project leaders are visiting the previously participating schools to determine the status of the project in each. They have found two secondary schools and one primary school continuing to make pads as before. Two of the transferred teachers are attempting to continue the project in their new schools with firm support from their headmasters. Three schools where the project had been discontinued have committed to restarting with TILT’s help.

Most of the schools’ sewing machines have deteriorated. We plan to transfer intact sewing machines from schools where they will not be used to schools where construction of reusable menstrual pads is valued. Six additional machines will be needed, as well as maintenance kits and accessories. They will also need materials and training for personnel where there is no longer a trained teacher.

To avoid interruption when teachers are transferred, the communities have suggested that two women from each school’s parent teacher association should be trained to make pads and to teach others to make them. In this way, the PTA can administer the program continuously despite teacher transfers. In addition, the PTA would generate funds for sewing machine maintenance and purchase of materials as needed.