ADVOCACYNET 416, September 16, 2024
Menstruation Challenge Drives WASH for Girl Students in Ugandan schools
When the school year reopens this week in the village of Kulu Opal in northern Uganda, girl students at the local primary school will be able to manage their menstrual periods on their own terms and in private, thanks to an innovative new WASH program to improve hygiene and boost enrollment.
The Kulu Opal school was recently equipped with WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) by the Gulu Disabled Persons Union (GDPU), a local advocate for disability rights and partner of The Advocacy Project (AP).
As well as new toilets and handwashing stations, girl students will now have a changing room and incinerator where they can dispose of used sanitary pads.
Emma Ajok, who manages WASH at GDPU, explained that these facilities would encourage girl students to remain in school and also extend the life of the latrine pit, which would otherwise get clogged up by used pads and eventually have to be drained – an expensive and unpleasant task.
Menstruation has emerged as a major barrier to girls’ education in Gulu district. Very few of the 47 government primary schools have a changing room for girls let alone an incinerator, and this acts as a major disincentive for girls and their parents.
“Some girls are afraid to attend school during their periods,” said Cesar Akena, who was until recently the chief education officer for the district and an admirer of GDPU’s work. “They fear being humiliated.”
The new incinerator at Kulu Opal is made from brick and connected to the girls’ changing room by a durable, concrete-layered tube. It added less than $500 to the cost of construction, which came out at $8,129 – considerably cheaper than similar government projects.
Julia Davatzes, a graduate student at George Washington University who volunteered at GDPU this summer as an AP Peace Fellow, explained in a blog that the incinerator was built to give the girls more privacy:
“When girls want to dispose of a sanitary pad, they can enter the changing room and throw the pad in the tube without being seen. This newest addition to the GDPU WASH package will provide girls with a private, clean, safe space to care for themselves so they can feel more comfortable going to school every day of the month.”
Kulu Opal is the seventh school to receive WASH from GDPU since 2015, and was selected after Geoffrey Layo, the head teacher, made a strong pitch to Emma Ajok from GDPU when she visited last year. At the time, the school only had ten functioning toilets for 750 students, forcing girl students to use derelict toilets built with Japanese aid in 2008. GDPU and AP produced a video on the visit earlier this year.
The new WASH package was handed over by GDPU on July 29 to the Kulu Opal community at the kind of ceremony that has become a popular feature of the WASH program. A senior local government official joined the chairman of the GDPU Board to cut the ribbon. They were followed by speeches, a performance from the school choir and a traditional lunch.
Fresh off this latest school intervention, GDPU is now looking ahead and hoping to install WASH at four schools in 2025-2026. In addition to the services currently offered, next year’s package will include three months’ supply of Clean Wash liquid soap made at GDPU by persons with disability under Ms Ajok’s supervision. Ms Ajok hopes to produce up to 2,000 liters next year and sell surplus soap to other schools at a discount.
The next big challenge after menstruation is likely to be water and handwashing. Most schools are equipped with gutters and a large 10,000-liter tank which are supposed to collect water during the rainy season. But almost all of the tanks and gutters seen by GDPU and AP since 2015 have been broken or vandalized, in some cases by parents. One tank at the Ogul School had not functioned for over ten years.
Patrick Ojok, the GDPU director, explained that any new gutters will be shorter and stronger. GDPU will also install more portable hand-washing stations, at a cost of around $15 apiece, and urge parents to oversee school bore-holes.
Monitoring and follow-up are another priority. GDPU plans to make monthly visits to schools that have received its WASH package in the past, to ensure that toilets are kept clean. Donors rarely follow up on their projects and the head teacher at Kulu Opal complained that Japanese Aid (JAICU) has never returned to check up on the toilets they installed in 2008.
In another innovation, Ms Ajok plans to add malaria prevention to hygiene training that she offers at the start of each school project. Uganda suffers from one of the highest rates of malaria in Africa and the disease casts a long shadow over schools. When AP visited Kulu Opal last year the girls’ choir showed off their talent by singing about malaria.
As the GDPU program enters its tenth year, the importance of building partnerships is becoming more apparent. GDPU is one of three NGOs supplying WASH to schools in Gulu and each model has its own unique features. For example, GDPU is the only one of the three that asks parents to dig the latrine pit, to ensure their involvement in maintaining the toilets.
But while approaches may differ, the projects are often complementary. GDPU installed new toilets at Kulu Opal after Save the Children had built a new classroom block at the same school. The district government has also followed GDPU’s lead and built additional toilets in several schools where GDPU first worked – a good example of how a local NGO can kick-start long-term change by working with local government.
Funding for GDPU’s WASH program in 2024 has been provided by the Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Dublin Ohio, the online giving community Givology, the Rotary Club of North Kingstown RI, and Josh Levy. Mr Levy helped GDPU to launch the first school project in 2015 while serving as an AP Peace Fellow.
Our thanks as well to staff members from the World Bank who have supported the WASH program through the Bank’s Community Connections Campaigns.
READ AND VIEW MORE
Podcast discussion between Givology students and the WASH team in Uganda, June 8, 2024
A Community WASH in Uganda (AP video), May 2024
Community-built Toilets Promise Better Hygiene for 1,400 Students in Uganda, July 20, 2022
Accessible Toilet in Northern Uganda Promises an End to Bullying of Students with Disability, August 19 2015
The (In)accessible toilet: When Nature Calls and Society Hangs Up, Blog by Peace Fellow Rebecca Scherpelz, September 8, 2011
The next big challenge: Water is in short supply in many schools outside the rainy season. GDPU will install handwashing stations and ask parents to maintain school bore-holes.
