Uganda (MNN) — For teenage girls in Uganda, their “time of the month” often means more than menstrual pain. It can also mean missing school and struggling to get menstrual supplies. But it doesn’t have to.
Every Child Ministries (ECM) held a menstrual health training workshop in Uganda for moms and their teen girls through the ministry’s Family Empowerment Program. The workshop taught the importance of hygiene, menstrual pain relief, and how to make reusable sanitary pads.
Mark Luckey, Executive Director of ECM says, “When it comes to the items that the women and the girls need, they’re just not available. Or I should say, they’re not available at a price maybe that is affordable to most of them so they try to use other methods.
“But when we can help them to make the reusable pads, then they’re able to be healthier…. Parents can do this and they can provide this not only for their own girls, but other girls in the community and their churches.”
Menstrual health workshop with ECM. (Photo courtesy of Every Child Ministries)
The idea for the menstrual health workshop came from simply asking the community what their needs are and how ECM could help meet those needs.
Luckey says with their programs, they seek to do more than offer short-term handouts. “We tend to like to meet immediate needs, and then we can walk away but that’s not the long-term solution. Programs like Family Empowerment are really designed as long-term solutions.”
With Ugandan girls and their parents learning to make more affordable, reusable sanitary pads as well as tools for pain relief, these young ladies will be able to stay in school with their peers and not miss crucial weeks of learning each year.
When asked why ECM does it? The answer: Christ’s compassion. The Family Empowerment Program also provides spiritual mentorship and allows them to share the Gospel.
You can sponsor a family with ECM’s Family Empowerment Program for anywhere from $65 to $260 a month.
Also, Luckey asks, “Pray that we would have the strength to meet those needs and to partner with people to help them solve these problems, these things that cause them pain, these things that lead to despair.”
Header photo of school dormitory in Uganda. (Photo courtesy of Mick Haupt/Unsplash)
