My Pads Program

My latest project is the My Pads Program at two of the primary schools near the tea estate. The My Pads Program is comprised of seven lessons on reproductive health followed by the making of reusable menstrual pads. The lessons cover life skills, puberty, the menstrual cycle, adolescent pregnancy, STI's, and HIV. The sad truth is the girls over here do not have enough money to buy disposable pads so they either stay home from school during their menstrual cycle, or they use unsanitary things such as rags, paper, or banana tree fibers. An even sadder truth is that some girls exchange sexual favors for money so they can purchase pads. Young girls are constantly the target of older men and fall victim to their advances since they see no other alternative to their daily struggles.

Some of the girls from one of the primary schools that will take part in the My Pads Program.

This program has the amazing potential to change the lives of these children (yes, both girls and boys sit through every lesson and make the reusable menstrual pads... which is kinda funny to watch since the boys get super embarrassed... we tell them they can give the pads they made to their sisters or their girlfriend, but who knows where they actually end up).

The program opens with Life Skills, which teaches about empowerment, decision making, consequences, the importance of confidence and self-respect, and how they can control their future. Giving the facts about pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases has been proven to NOT be enough. The rate of teenage pregnancy and the rate of new HIV infections is still on the rise in this country. So in addition to information, we are encouraging them to make smart choices for themselves.

Then we teach the facts about the reproductive system, no secrets. I've even told them that if they are too embarrassed to ask a question in class, they can write their questions down and the following day I will return to read and answer all of them. Oh boy, I opened a serious can of worms there! My most embarrassing... why do boys have wet dreams. Yes, I'm explaining wet dreams to Ugandan teenagers. I wonder if this is part of the Peace Corps mission?

Lastly, we teach the kids to make the reusable pads and we provide the materials needed to make one pad each. Hopefully they will be able to take this skill home, find the required materials, and make more pads for themselves. This is the part I hate, but... we need money to buy the initial materials to make the pads. I applied for a Peace Corps grant, thinking the money was available within the organization, but have since learned, it is not. They are hoping my friends and family will contribute. When I first came here I promised myself I would not solicit funds from those back home, and here I am breaking that promise.

So, if you want to donate to this program you can online at:
https://donate.peacecorps.gov/donate/project/my-pads-project/

It seems like a relatively small amount of money needed, but it's a huge amount for these people. To put things in perspective, the parents of these children make about $30 a month if they are tea estate employees. If they are from the neighboring villages, they make nothing, they are substance farmers just trying to survive. So, the tea workers are considered well off with an annual salary of $360. Unfortunately, I'm told it's the single men from the company that target the girls. I don't have the power to change those men, but I'm trying my best to get the girls to say no and to stand up for themselves. I'm also hoping that by including the teenage boys in this type of training that I will get them to respect women more and not grow into the nasty men they see on the estate.
 
Just in case you are wondering what a reusable pad looks like, here are a few pictures from a previous lesson I gave at a Girl's Empowerment camp. It costs less a dollar to make two of them and you wash and reuse it. A girl may need a few to allow for drying time (you gotta wear one while you are washing and drying the others). With proper care it should last a year. In addition to saving a ton money, you are saving the environment from all of that horrible plastic required in the making and packaging of disposable pads.

Malaria Training and Mosquito Net Distribution

For the last two weeks I have been busy teaching lessons on malaria and distributing (and hanging) mosquito nets in our labor villages on the tea estate. We started this project with the simple idea that we would teach a few malaria lessons at the local primary school, Hamukuku. Before each lesson I asked the children to raise their hand if they slept under a mosquito net the night before. On average, only 20% of the students raised their hands. For a country suffering from deaths due to severe malaria, this is a very sad percentage... especially when the government had distributed free mosquito nets just over a year ago.

By talking with the teachers at the school, the clinic staff where I work, and the village leaders on the tea estate, it seemed that most people who were given nets by the government were either not using the nets for the intended purpose (bed nets apparently make good curtains, dish drainers, chicken coops, and tomato guards), using the nets for the adults and babies in the house (leaving the school age children we were addresses with none), or they had moved away and taken the nets with them (leaving new employees and their families without nets in their residence).

The peer educators and I thought we could help the families in the labor camps by giving the same classes that we gave in the primary school to the parents. Maybe, just maybe, when the government gave out nets they did not explain the purpose and importance of these nets in the fight against malaria. Maybe if the parents had some information about bed net use we could reduce the number of malaria cases coming into the clinic, and maybe if we educated them on the seriousness of the disease, the symptoms to watch for, and treatment to expect if malaria was contracted, we could reduce the number of severe cases and hopefully see a reduction in deaths.

Me with a few of the older kids that were following us from home to home hanging nets.

Well, that was our hope. I got a grant to purchase 110 nets (which is just a drop compared to the need) and the peer educators and I have been moving through the labor camps teaching and hanging nets. This is the real work that I have been sent to accomplish. However, I would be much happier if I could have just stayed in the schools and pretended all was well with the world. But now that I have spent hours after hours in the camps and have entered the homes and I'm dumbfounded at how these people live. In school, of the most part, the kids are clothed and clean and well behaved. In the camps they are not any of those things. I suspect only a small percentage of the kids I saw in the camps actually go to school.

The village supervisor in the middle with two of the peer educators.

The village supervisor with the recipient of a net.
 

Granted, I have been in the camps before now. I have taken tours and met the village leaders and have even given a few classes. But now my eyes are open. Once you spend a few hours there, and the residents are over their shock of seeing a white person in their camp, the truth becomes evident. The little ones that are not yet potty trained do not wear diapers (or pants or any kind of clothing below the waist) and they just poop and pee where ever. None of the kids wear shoes, so I watched a toddler poop in the middle of the walkway and another kid walk right through it barefoot. Then that toddler, obviously no one came to clean him up, crawled over a few other kids, dirty bottom touching everything. I was shocked. But before I could wrap my brain around that incident, I saw a group of kids, around 3 or 4 years old, eating mango peals out of the garbage and picking them out of the dirt. They just wiped the dirt on the their shirt and put the peal in their mouth. Other kids were taking plastic wrappers out of the garbage and licking them. I made a comment to one of the peer educators that was with me and he shoed the kids away. I asked where those kid's parents were, those are the people we should be addressing, not the kids themselves. Ha, a few words were exchanged in Rotooro which I could not understand and the adults looked at me like I was insane. Nothing changed. Makes me wonder if malaria is the worst of their worries. They need parenting classes, adequate clothing, and food.

Kids in the camp.

Oh boy, I better stop this post here because... well, you know. This job is beyond frustrating!