Ms Naiga Zulaika , commissioner at the Ministry of education and sports has emphasized the need for both parents and teachers to have free open discussion about menstrual related topics with young adolescents to avoid being misled by their friends.
Her remarks came as she was officiating the climax of 2023 edition of Solooza always campaign which has been running with different targets.
According to Ms.Naiga Most of adolescent girls are receiving information about menstrual topics from their friends and parents think this is enough. ” Parents must walk the talk, If you don’t talk or guide your girl about menstrual topics, they will look the information from their peers’, she noted.
Ms. Naiga further noted that as ministry education they have come up with study material about menstrual hygiene and management and they have distributed quite some to schools to ensure teachers use them to educate adolescents.
She encouraged teachers to use the study materials effectively and those schools which haven’t gotten the materials, she asked them to go to the department of gender at the ministry of education to get them.
Mr. Twaha Kakaire, project manager for solooza always, said this year’s edition has registered tremendous achievements.
The country wide campaign looks at tackling challenges of menstrual hygiene, keeping girls in school, reduce stigma among others. He noted
Solooza Always is a program created by Always, a global brand of sanitary pads whose goal is to create a world where no girl misses school due to periods.
The program, which was piloted in May 2019 and rolled out in January 2022 for its 1st edition, is set up to encourage secondary school girls to maintain attendance of classes during their periods, after discovering that 1 out of 5 girls misses classes due to various menstrual reasons, which include lack of reliable sanitary pads and stigma, leading to poor performance while some of them even drop out.
Two more editions have followed since – the 2nd edition in January 2023 and the 3rd in September 2023, which has just concluded.
Solooza Always entails students collecting empty packs of Always pads across participating schools, to drive positive behavior change, resulting into improved menstrual care and environmental protection.
The activity of collecting empty Always packs is then rewarded after one month, when Always gives out scholarships, laptops and Always pads for a full year to the top participants. Beneficiaries are both students; girls and boys, and schools.
The rewards for participation are deliberately chosen to encourage girl-education. 55 scholarships have gone to girls since the 1st edition, whereas over 500 girls received Always pads for a full year. 27 got laptops to get them moving smoothly through the current IT trends in the course of their learning.
In addition to individual-girl benefits, 60 laptops have been distributed to participating schools from the series of Solooza Always editions.
Solooza Always has been embraced very positively in schools and among students, and has become very popular in Uganda for championing menstrual care to enable girls maintain a solid ground and face their menstrual challenges positively.
Conducting the program in secondary schools, where girls are transitioning into young adults and in need of a deep talk around how to manage themselves in society during their periods, is where the real business is.
Working closely with senior women teachers to reach the girls and conduct menstrual dialogue sessions with them has made it easy, whereas the impact has been testified by the girls themselves.
The program has gained massive popularity from the 1st edition to the 3rd and most recent which closed on Friday 3rd November 2023 at Progressive Secondary School in Kitintale, with 109,850 girls participating across 835 schools this time.
Kitintale progressive was awarded with three Brand New laptops o facilitate ICT studies among students. The best for students in central from Paul Mukasa secondary school, Kitintale progressive secondary, Luzira secondary and Biina Islamic were also awarded with each school fees worth one million shillings and full year supply of sanitary towels.
