Through her Girl Up Initiative, girls in schools are taught to make reusable pads, which helps them stay in school. BY BEATRICE NAKIBUUKA.
Monica Nyiraguhabwa is an innovative social entrepreneur and nonprofit executive. In 2012, she co founded Girl Up Initiative Uganda (GUIU) to respond to the limited life choices and opportunities among adolescent girls and young women living in the impoverished areas of Uganda.
Nyiraguhabwa is an advocate for girls’ Education in Uganda and globally. She is a recipient of multiple global awards and fellowship programmes, including the Obama Africa leader, Perennial Fellow, Cordes Fellow, Skoll Fellow and African Visionary Fellow.
She has guided GUIU to achieve global status as a well-known locally-rooted organisation working to secure long-term change for girls and young women. The organisation has been internationally recognised as part of Michelle Obama’s Girls Opportunity Alliance.
Her Girl Up Initiative Uganda has popularly been known for transforming lives of girls and young women especially through the adolescent girls’ programme.
The in-school programme empowers girls in schools to know about their sexual and reproductive health and rights. Through this programme, they have been able to reach out to more than 66,000 adolescents with transformative education.
“We focus on building adolescent girls’ capacities for individual empowerment. We want them to know how they can use the readily available resources to make pads. The reusable pads help them ensure proper menstrual hygiene and be able to stay in school.”
About five million girls in Uganda lose at least 18 percent of their annual school time each year during their menstruation due to lack of sanitary pads. Many girls who lack access to sanitary pads are always forced to stay home during their period days, to avoid the stigma associated with staining school uniforms with menstrual blood.
The impact
Through her Girl Up Initiative, girls in schools are taught to make reusable pads, which helps them stay in school. She understands the experience of women and girls in Uganda because she grew up in Kirombe, Luzira, a Kampala suburb. The turning point in her life was when she got a chance to study from a different continent.
“I realised the uniqueness in their education where girls are encouraged to fight for their rights, be confident and not live in survival mode but get life transforming education. I have a burning desire to create an impact for the woman in my society, the reason I started this initiative,” she says.
Nyiraguhabwa started by visiting several primary schools with the aim of inspiring girls, encouraging them and giving them the information they need to know about the changes that take place as one grows up since many parents do not talk to their adolescent children about these changes. With time, she realised there were bigger demands and she had to respond to them.
“Many girls are not told about the changes their bodies will go through when adolescence starts. So, when these changes finally start, they get scared because they do not know what is happening or how to handle the changes,” she says.
Boys too
Besides reproductive health, the initiative also started the boy champions’ project to help achieve gender equality.
“We ensure that boys are aware of their masculinity, superiority and opportunities and use them as agents of change to support their relationships with girls,” she says.
In 2015, Girl Up Initiative Uganda partnered with Plan International Uganda for the Ni-Yetu Youth Project to empower young people aged between 13 and 24 with the correct knowledge, attitude, and skills for reducing gender-based violence and improving their sexual and reproductive health outcomes. The project looks at challenging negative social norms and practices that affect sexual and reproductive health outcomes among young people.
At their office in Luzira, Nyiraguhabwa also empowers women and girls in communities with fashion entrepreneurship skills to enable those who have dropped out of school earn a living through tailoring.
Advice
Nyiraguhabwa says since we are living in a patriarchal and male dominated society, for any woman to succeed, they must assert themselves in that space until they are noticed.
“We cannot leave any girl behind. We also encourage men to be part of the equation and ensure women get equal opportunities,” she says.
Education
Nyiraguhabwa is a Commonwealth Scholar with an MA in Education, Gender and International Development from the University College of London and a BA in Adult and Community Education from Makerere University in Kampala. She went to Murchison-bay Primary School, St Henry Girl’s School Buyege and Makerere University where she obtained a bachelor’s degree in adult and community Education.
