Mr Charles Onyango-Obbo
In the unassuming village of Mengo, Katajula Parish, Nagongera Sub-county in Tororo District, eastern Uganda, 12-year-old Amina Nyafono wakes before dawn. Her school, a modest collection of brick classrooms, is a 40-minute walk away. It seems impossible, given her surroundings, but she dreams of becoming a doctor.
However, every month, her period threatens to steal that dream. With no sanitary pads, no private latrine, and no water at school, Amina faces a choice: endure humiliation or stay home. Too often, she chooses the latter, missing days that add up to weeks, then years. Her classmate Boaz Okello, 13, faces his own struggles.
The school’s single, dilapidated latrine, shared by boys and girls, is a health hazard. He avoids it, sometimes skipping school to escape the stench and shame. Across Uganda, Nyafono and Okello’s story is not unique. Studies reveal that 30 to 42 per cent of girls miss 1 to 3 days of school per menstrual cycle due to inadequate menstrual hygiene management (MHM).
Boys, too, lose 8 to 12 percent of school time to health issues from poor sanitation. The absence of separate latrines and clean water traps both in a cycle of absenteeism, threatening their futures. Yet, hope glimmers in places like Tele Day School (not its real name). There, WaterAid built separate latrines and water taps.
Amina’s eyes light up as she describes the lockable girls’ latrine: “I feel safe now. I can stay in class.” Attendance records show a 40 percent jump for girls and 10 percent for boys since the facilities arrived. Okello no longer leaves school to fetch water, his focus is now on his studies, not survival. Unicef’s WASH programmes, spanning 1,000 Ugandan schools, report a 17 percent rise in girls’ enrolment, with boys gaining from healthier environments.
In Masha, Isingiro District, in Western Uganda, where latrines and pads were introduced in a programme, girls’ attendance soared, a testament to what’s possible when dignity is restored. But this is Uganda, where promises are often grander than reality.In 2015, President Yoweri Museveni stood before the nation, vowing free sanitary pads for school girls. It was a pledge to keep girls like Nyafono in school, to break the chains of poverty and shame. By 2017, the dream crumbled.
First Lady and Education Minister Janet Museveni cited a $4.4 million funding shortfall, a bitter pill when billions flow to political patronage. The government’s 2020 plan for a sanitary pad factory fizzled into silence, leaving 42 percent of girls in some regions still missing 2.6 days per period. The betrayal sparked a fire in Dr Stella Nyanzi, a fierce academic with a pen as sharp as a panga.
She launched #Pads4GirlsUg, a crowdfunding campaign that delivered pads to thousands of girls, a defiant middle finger to a government she accused of prioritising “fat MPs’ allowances” over education. Her activism was raw, unapologetic—she called out the First Lady in biting prose. But power doesn’t bend easily in Kampala. Nyanzi was arrested in 2017 for “insulting” Janet Museveni, her voice briefly silenced in Luzira Prison. Yet, her campaign lit a spark, forcing a nation to confront its neglect.
The government scrapped VAT on sanitary pads in 2017, a small victory, but no national pad programme emerged. While politicians dithered, others acted. NGOs like AFRIpads reached over 500,000 girls with reusable pads, slashing absenteeism in refugee settlements by 25 percent. Plan International’s MHM programmes cut girls’ absences by 20 percent in targeted schools.
I write this because of a story I have just read from an unlikely corner of the world: Buggy Eakin, an 18-year-old from Washougal, USA. A Girl Scout, Eakin crafted 1,000 reusable pads for her Gold Award project, partnering with OurGanda to serve Uganda’s Bundibugyo District. Sewing with friends, funded by cookie sales and donations, she tackled a tiny part of Uganda’s trash crisis, where disposable pads clog communities.
Her pads, packed in handmade bags, reached villages in 2024, a quiet act of solidarity.The politics of pads and latrines is a mirror of Uganda’s soul. The government is big on grand gestures but stumbles on delivery. Nyanzi’s arrest exposed the state’s thin skin, a system that punishes truth-tellers while girls bleed in silence. Her #Pads4GirlsUg campaign, though, proved the power of defiance, galvanising citizens to fill the government’s void. Eakin’s contribution shows that small efforts can have big effects.
Fast forward to 2027.In Katajula, Nyafono, now 14, clutches a reusable pad, her eyes on a stethoscope. Okello, 15, is healthier now, and dreams of engineering. Separate latrines and water have given them a fighting chance. Remarkable how little it took. But until Uganda’s leaders match their words with wallets, the fight for education remains a patchwork of heroes like Nyanzi—who was run out of town—and the resilience of children who refuse to give up.
Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”. X@cobbo3
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