Keep 1000 Ugandan Girls in School

Summary

Only through educational and vocational training can girls in developing countries change their future. The #1 reasons girls in Uganda drop out of school is their monthly cycle. This project provides a sustainable and eco-friendly solution: reusable sanitary pads. In addition, girls will receive vocational training and learn how to make the pads themselves, which they will share with other girls in a pay-it-forward community outreach.

What is the issue, problem, or challenge?

One of the major causes of disempowerment of girls in developing countries is their monthly cycle. Many girls cannot afford feminine hygiene products and as a result cannot attend school. A girl absent from school due to menstruation for 4 days of every 28 day cycle loses 13 learning days, the equivalent of two weeks of learning every school term. Studies show that every year of schooling increasing a girl’s future earning power by 10 to 20 percent, allowing her to break the cycle of poverty.

How will this project solve this problem?

This project provides a multifaceted solution: 1) Supply eco-friendly reusable sanitary pad kits 2) Vocational training for girls to learn seamstress skills. As the girls learn to sew, they make pad kits that they will share with other girls in need 3) Synergy with woman’s health NGOs to share pads and health education 4) Train local women and set up a manufacturing facility for pads, adding to local income 5) Petition the Uganda Parliament to provide funding for pads in education budget

Potential Long Term Impact

Educated girls are more likely to become empowered women; they are more likely to take control of their lives, have economic security, and raise fewer and healthier children who will in turn be more likely to be educated themselves. The girls in the program will not only be able to stay in school, but will learn a marketable vocational skill and selfless service. The manufacturing facility will boast local income and provide a source of funding to establish similar programs at other schools.

How You Can Help!

1. Visit the Project on GlobalGiving.  http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/pads-for-schoolgirls
2. Share it on Facebook, Twitter and Google+
3. Promote the Project on your website with a Donation Widget. http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/pads-for-schoolgirls/share/#widget
4. Donate to the Project through the GlobalGiving website.
5. Donate through your US mobile phone by texting GIVE 8789 to 80088 to donate $10 to Keep 1000 Ugandan Girls in School. (Message and data rates may apply. Only works for US mobile phones.  Text STOP to 80088 to STOP. Text HELP to 80088 for HELP. Full Terms: mGive.org/T. Privacy policy: goto.gg/privacy)

These cows will be bred so that we will be looking forward to calves next summer.

The cows will provide a great source of nourishment (in the form of milk) for the children at FVS and give the children in the program to expand their knowledge and skills of livestock management.

The children are excited about the new animals and are learning the proper care and handling of cattle.

The Learning Landscape is a playground framework for elementary learning that teaches core subjects, social skills, and leadership through game play and fun physical activity!

The easy-to-build playspace was designed by Project H Design and is made of recycled materials.  Project H Design graciously shares the plans with all those who wish to build one.  The playspace and network of games for multiple subjects can be integrated into any school curriculum to improve student learning capacities.

We can attest that children love it!

We are currently looking at other locations to install this wonderful ludic activity and learning tool.

Our Gratitude to Project H Design!  You can connect with them at: http://www.projecthdesign.org and http://www.learninglandscapenetwork.com

Our Gratitude to Michael Green and the students of the Integrated Development Academy of Hervey Bay, Australia whose 2011 Walk of Inspiration raised the funds for the project.  Connect with them at: http://www.integratedacademy.com

Of everything I have seen, there is probably no difference greater between the developed world and the developing world than the problems that arise for a girl as she transitions into womanhood.

Millions of girls in Sub-Saharan Africa are disempowered by the simple biological process of menstruation.  Affordable and hygienic sanitary protection is not available to girls in many areas.  They resort to the use of unhygienic rags and cloths which puts them at the risk of infections.

A girl absent from school due to menstruation for four days of every 28 day cycle loses 13 learning days, the equivalent to two weeks of learning, every school term.  Academic performance is closely correlated with school attendance, and absenteeism, and dropout rates are high for rural Ugandan girls.  A survey of menstruating girls in Uganda found that “the biggest numbers of school dropouts are girls because of inconveniences during their menstrual periods.”

Proposing a Solution

Reusable sanitary pads.  Reusable sanitary pads are a sustainable and easily renewable resource, allowing the girls to wash and reuse them rather than having to buy disposable pads every month.  In addition, they are comparatively inexpensive and environmentally friendly.  The social benefit of the implementation of this concept can greatly mitigate the disadvantages and challenges many disempowered girls endure during their process of maturing.

The Pads for Schoolgirls Project

Humanity Healing International is implementing a 5-phase project to address this problem:

1. Create an immediate supply of reusable sanitary pad kits for the young girls in the program.
2. Create a Vocational Training Program focused on seamstress and sewing skills.  Part of the training in this curriculum will be the manufacture of the reusable pad kits to be “paid forward” to other girls in the region.
3. Connect with Non-Governmental Organizations, NGOs, teaching women and girl’s reproductive health and safety. Be a focal point for the development and expansion of Health Awareness programs to bring concepts such as feminine hygiene, programmed parenthood, and general wellbeing.
4. Grow/expand the Vocational Training Program into a sustainable part-time industry providing a viable income-generating activity for impoverished women to manufacture pad kits.
5. Create and promote an activist campaign to create awareness in the global community and to petition the Ugandan government to allocate funding to prevent girls from missing school due to lack of sanitary pads.  To cite an example, the government of Kenya has recently established a gender-responsive funding initiative with this goal by providing free pads to schoolgirls.

For more details, visit the Project page here on the website:

http://humanityhealing.org/current-projects/africa/empowering-girls

How You Can Help

1. Spread the News!  Please Facebook, Tweet, +1…share across all your social networks.  Download the Project Synopsis and share what you learn with others.  We need to ripple this out and we need you!
2. If you belong to Causes on Facebook, please choose HHI as your charity to fundraise for this holiday season.  Create a Holiday Wish (or Birthday Wish) for http://www.causes.com/causes/281161-humanity-healing-international
3. If you have sewing skills, you can help make the pads we will be sending to Africa.  For more information, see:  Pad Kit Information
4. Sign the Petition: Pads for Schoolgirls Petition.  Get your friends to sign.  We need at least 2500 signatures to start being heard.  Be the Voice of the Voiceless.
5. Donations are always good.  We have a lot that needs doing!

Construction of the Learning Landscape is done will all recycled materials.  Because of its location, the recycled tires used in the Learning Landscape were driven in on motorcycles.  Construction was done completely with hand tools.  As you can see in the slideshow, the children watched in excited anticipation as it was built.

What is unique about the Learning Landscape is that while it can be also used for physical activities, the games designed for the playground teach math and critical thinking skills.

In the words of Wilson Ngobi, the Administrative Director of Future Victory School: “The children are so excited!  You have transformed FVS!”

 
The funding for the Learning Landscape came from Michael Green and the students of the Integrated Development Academy of Hervey Bay, Australia.  Our sincere Gratitude for your Compassion in Action through your 2011 Walk of Inspiration.  http://www.integratedacademy.com

The Learning Landscape was developed by Project H Design.  http://www.projecthdesign.org

Sign the petition to Save the Mabira Forest

A plan to replace a large swathe of protected rainforest in Uganda with sugarcane could lead to further civil unrest in a year when nine people have been killed during strikes and protests against the rising cost of living.

Politicians and activists have warned they will fight the revived plan to uproot just less than a quarter of the 30,000 hectare Mariba Forest, 50km east of Kampala, and allocate the land to the perennially unprofitable Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited (SCOUL), a joint venture between India’s Mehta Group and the Ugandan government.

Noting that the forest had been protected since 1932, mainly because of its biodiversity, Annet Nakyeyune, an environmentalist and professor at Makerere University, said Mabira was home to several threatened animal species, provided ecosystem services to its surrounding communities and was a source of revenue from eco-tourism.

Conservationists warn that up to 312 species of trees, 287 species of bird and 199 types of butterfly were under threat.

“The forests protect micro-climates and because we have degraded our environment, we are witnessing landslides every year now,” said Frank Muramuzi, executive director of the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) and national convenor of the pressure group, Save Mabira Crusaders.

“Giving out Mabira will be counter-productive because it will even affect the rainfall.”

“If you are building dams around the River Nile you do not want to do anything in the hinterland that will disrupt the hydrological feature,” he said. “Forests are considered to be one of the major carbon sinks; if you then destroy a forest like Mabira you will have destroyed a very important sink very close to the capital city with a fast-growing industrial sector,” he said.

A March 2011 report by the directorate of water resources in the Ministry of Water and Environment found evidence of water stress in many areas of the country. The report blamed the decline in surface and ground water on changes in land use, climate change, land degradation, deforestation and poor watershed management.

At least three people died during a protest in 2007 against a similar plan to allocate part of Mabira to SCOUL.

Politicians opposed to the scheme worry about a repeat of alleged abuses by security forces during protests in April and May 2011, which, according to Human Right Watch, included killings, beatings, and abusive and arbitrary arrest of protesters and uninvolved bystanders.

This article is adapted from an article published by irinnews.org.  You can read the full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93678

Take Action!

Add YOUR Voice to those opposing the destruction of Uganda’s “protected” national forests by redirecting the growth of the sugarcane industry to less environmentally sensitive areas. The signed petition will be delivered by representatives of Humanity Healing International’s Ugandan-based Community Based Organizations to President Yoweri Museveni and ranking parliamentary officials of Museveni’s political party, the National Resistance Movement, NRM. The petition will also be sent to Robert B. Zoellick, President of the World Bank.

To sign the petition, click:

Save the Mabira Forest Petition

Photo of Kutamba School for AIDS Orphans, Uganda. Courtesy of Project H Design.

Public education in Uganda extends only until the equivalent of 8th grade and resources are stretched thin. Opportunities for orphaned children are rare. Future Victory School, FVS, was established in the year 2000 as a response to an avalanche of orphans created by AIDS and the Civil War in Uganda. Currently, there are 458 students (283 are girls) enrolled, the majority of which are orphans, 10 are HIV+, and 4 are disabled.

As part of our sponsorship of FVS, HHI is always looking for innovative new ways to educate and teach life skills to open doors for these children to greater opportunities in the future.  One of these is the Learning Landscape, one of the innovative educational programs developed by Project H Design.  One of the ways the Learning Landscape is unique is that it uses recycled materials for construction.

The building of the Learning Landscape will provide a new type of learning tool to this part of Uganda.  The Learning Landscape is a playground framework for elementary learning that teaches math and other core subjects, critical thinking, social skills, and leadership through game play and fun physical activity.

The Learning Landscape at Future Victory School is now a featured project on GlobalGiving.  Please visit our page there and help support these children:  http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/learning-landscape-for-fvs

Construction of the Learning Landscape will begin shortly.  We are looking forward to sharing pictures of the project with you.

You can learn more about Learning Landscapes, including how to build one, at: http://www.learninglandscapenetwork.com

You can learn more about our friends at Project H Design at: http://www.projecthdesign.org

As Uganda grapples with an acute shortage of sugar that has caused prices to more than double in a year, President Yoweri Museveni has deemed the timing perfect to resurrect his plan to convert a quarter of a major natural forest into a sugarcane plantation.

Underlying Museveni’s plan is an obvious conflict of economic and environmental imperatives. Environmental authorities say that Uganda, with the world’s third-fastest growing population, loses 2% of its forest cover annually; 10% of this vanishes from protected areas like Mabira, thanks to logging and human settlement. The National Forestry Authority (NFA) highlights warnings by some experts that, at the current rate, the country could have no forests by 2050.

But Museveni last week told local leaders that the Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited (SCOUL), would be given about 7,100 hectares of the 30,000-hectare Mabira forest to expand its cane plantations. The move, which has been condemned by conservation groups and the political opposition, is not new. In 2007, three people died during demonstrations against Museveni’s intention to turn over the land, located 55km east of the capital Kampala, to SCOUL.

Critics point out that Uganda has a lot of unencumbered land elsewhere, where the company can grow sugarcane. Conservation groups and forestry experts have long warned that destroying even part of the forest’s diversity would affect the region’s microclimate, lead to a loss of fauna and flora, and affect the already falling water levels of Lake Victoria and the Nile, which would affect the country’s floundering hydropower stations.

Ideally, there should be no need to choose between economic growth and the environment in an age abuzz with “sustainable development”. Museveni can’t be faulted for wanting millions more in the treasury coffers – especially if it is going to put medicines in health centres or agricultural inputs in peasant households. But it beggars belief that the president, whose spokesman describes him as “an environmentalist”, should trade protected forest hectares for tax revenues.

The last attempt to give away the forest was reportedly abandoned after pressure from the World Bank. Announcing the government’s retreat in 2007, Ezra Suruma, the finance minister at the time, said: “We have committed ourselves to conserving Mabira forest. There is other land in Uganda suitable for sugarcane growing.” Clearly the government’s position has changed.

This post was adapted from an article by Richard M Kavuma and posted in the guardian.co.uk.  Read the original story at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/aug/22/trading-forest-sugar-museveni-uganda

Take Action!

Add YOUR Voice to those opposing the destruction of Uganda’s “protected” national forests by redirecting the growth of the sugarcane industry to less environmentally sensitive areas.  The signed petition will be delivered by representatives of Humanity Healing International’s Ugandan-based Community Based Organizations to President Yoweri Museveni and ranking parliamentary officials of Museveni’s political party, the National Resistance Movement, NRM.  The petition will also be sent to Robert B. Zoellick, President of the World Bank.

To sign the petition, click:

Save the Ugandan National Mabira Forest from Sugarcane Plantations Petition

Read More

Mabira Forest – Wikipedia

Sugarcane Can Grow Anywhere, Not Only in Mabira

Getting Cozy with Mabira Forest

Mabira Rainforest once again to become Mabira Sugarcane Fields

Uganda to allow sugarcane plantation in Mabira forest

We are in the process of switching over the website to a new format that will allow us to have greater flexibility, more interaction with you, and additional features, such as petitions, which will help us created a larger impact for our projects.

Please have patience as we transfer all the material into the new format.

Much Metta,
HH Team

Vocational Training Center

As has been reported in the news, Eastern Africa has been hit with a famine that was brought on by drought.  The cassava that is being grown at the Vocational Training Center and Model Farm is a special drought resistant hybrid.  We have been sharing cuttings from the cassava plants out to the local communities to help increase food security in the region.  This strand of cassava was purchased through the generosity of our community.

Our goat herd at the Vocational Training Center, located at Future Victory School, is growing.  From an initial start of 30 goats, the herd is up to 40.  We are currently looking to trade/sell some of the goats to purchase some cows which can be raised along with the goats.  The cows we intend to raise are local but exotic by a percentage of 50%. These are resistant to the climatic conditions of Uganda and requirement a minimal veterinary expenditure compared to the 75% or 100% exotics. A young heifer of 5 months old costs about 500,000 Shillings (1.00 USD = 2,500.00 UGX) but since we were proposing to exchange with goats, we are yet to know the number of goats that they may need from us. The cows will be raised for milk.