Women Reps to take over sanitary towels program

“In this era we should not be having children miss classes because they cannot have access to pads”- Agnes Catherine Okello, parent at Orwamuge Primary School

Yet Mr Charles Dickens Owinyi, district education officer of Abim, says at least 86% of girls in Karamoja don’t finish primary education. Awach Primary School didn’t have a water facility 50 years after its establishment until Absa Bank Uganda and World Vision partnered to build one.

Closer to home, County Women Representatives will now oversee Kenya's free sanitary towels for school girls programme. Over the years, the programme has rotated in various ministries but none seemed to get consistent distribution right. Right now the programme is shifting from the Ministry of Education to the State Department for Gender. What will be different this time?

NGAAF CEO Roy Telewa says, “Women members of Parliament, who advocate for menstrual hygiene can amplify their voices more effectively. The Ministry is developing a framework based on the number of schools in each county, which has been the basis for previous distributions.” In his opinion, the discrepancies in the number of girls receiving pads have been more of a budgeting problem.

The sanitary pads programme was rolled out in 2011 and women representatives were first elected in 2013. In May 2019, Janet Mbugua filed a petition demanding MPs to implement the Menstrual Health Management Policy to ensure the distribution of sanitary pads. Her Inua Dada Foundation, established in 2013, received a sh.15 million grant from USAID in 2023 to fight period poverty. Let's see what the women representatives can accomplish with a budget of sh.940 million and their voices.

Learn more about the World Menstrual Hygiene Day here.