2018 is coming to an end, and we would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your great support and collaboration in the past year. Thanks to you we have been able to continue our work for dignity, freedom and empowerment for girls and women surrounding their menstruation. So far, menstrual cup taxes have been scrapped, cup-friendly national curriculums have been developed, sustainable cup supply mechanisms have been established, quality menstrual health management training materials have been developed, tested and rolled out to millions of girls, we have built other organisations’ capacity to do menstrual health programming and the Ugandan government is guiding the next steps for scale up.
The WoMena engine runs on passion and hard work, so we’re very proud to present some of the biggest highlights of the past year:
Highlights from 2018:
MENISCUS-II
How can improving menstrual hygiene management help to raise school attendance among girls? This was the question behind the MENISCUS-II (Menstrual Hygiene and Safe Male Circumcision Promotion in Ugandan Schools) project, that have taken place through 2018 in two schools in Entebbe. 450 girls and boys between the ages of 12 and 21 took part, and the results have been positive: Generally there has been a substantial improvement in knowledge of puberty and menstruation for the students, who also report a reduction in anxiety and stigma surrounding menstruation. In general, the period-related absenteeism in the two schools had also gone down.
BUIKWE
In Buikwe District, WoMena is working with local public school authorities to introduce menstrual health interventions across all schools in the district. WoMena has so far trained the teachers, and given reusable pads, a menstrual cup and training to more than 1300 students from four schools. One of the girls participating in the project said about how the training sessions have changed their views on their period: “Most girls knew very little about menstruation. They didn’t know why we menstruate, how can I track my days and how does it come. We know now that when it comes it’s normal so there is no need to get worried.”
MARIE STOPES - SUSTAINABLE CUP SUPPLY
Based on our study last year assessing sales models for menstrual cups, Marie Stopes has scaled up their menstrual cup sales this year, creating a one sustainable source of menstrual cups in the country.
WOMENA EXPANDING 2018 was also the year where WoMena spread out geographically, as we began doing projects in Denmark and Kenya. Together with The Nest International (”Reden International”) and Soroptimists Varde, we have begun a project to assess whether the menstrual cup is a viable menstrual care product for a new beneficiary group, international female sex workers as well as providing basic education on their bodies and menstrual hygiene management. For Kenya’s largest family planning service provider, the NGO Family Health Options Kenya we have this month trained some of their beneficiaries in menstrual health as well as built their staff’s capacity to plan and implement menstrual health and menstrual cup interventions.
Next Year
We are grateful to have been able to carry out these as well as the rest of our projects in the year that has been. We are looking forward to an exciting 2019, where among other things:
• We will start working in South Sudan in collaboration with Save the Children and applying the lessons learned with working with South Sudanese refugees in Ugandan settlements.
• The Buikwe project will be scaled up to cover 28 schools with the goal of creating a positive environment among the local communities towards menstrual health and for the district to have the capacity to scale up the intervention themselves going forward.
• The next step will be taken in our project in Bidbidi Refugee Settlement in Northern Uganda, funded by the Humanitarian Innovation Fund and in close collaboration with the Ugandan Ministry of Health. The aim is to assess how reusable pads and a menstrual cups will be received by the women participating, and it is the first study assessing the acceptability of menstrual cups in a refugee settlement anywhere in the world.
A Warm Thanks
Thank you again for all of your invaluable support! We’re looking forward to continue our work and hope that you will continue to support us in the new year.
