Parliament raises 9,000 reusable pads for Northern Uganda
Afripads (U) Ltd has donated 3,000 packs of reusable sanitary pads, boosting Parliament’s effort to provide the sanitary towels to girls in Northern Uganda.
The donation brings the total collections of reusable sanitary towels to 8,954, which will be distributed to selected primary schools in Pader, Kitgum, Lamwo districts.
Officials from Afripads announced their donation to the Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Rebecca Kadaga, today, Thursday 27th April, 2017.
The Parliament of Uganda launched a Corporate Social Responsibility drive to collect money and buy the reusable sanitary pads during the Parliament Week held from 5th to 10th February 2017. Collections from Members of Parliament and staff in the Parliamentary Service amounted to UShs 8.9m, which was topped up by Shs 20.3m from the Parliamentary Commission.
Parliament has already identified the schools to benefit from the pads including Puranga Primary School, Acholibur Primary School, Lagiel Primary School and Lacekocot Primary School. Others are Kitgum Girls Primary School, Lagotcuku Primary School in Kitgum district; Agoro Primary School, Dicwinyi Primary School and Childcare Primary School in Lamwo district.
“The schools were arrived at following consultation and guidance from the respective District Education Officers,” said Speaker Kadaga.
Officials from Afripads said that their re-usable pads are made in Masaka, employing 200 people, using imported raw materials. They said that they had acquired land to set up a plant and are targeting to produce over one million pads a year.
Bruce Muhame, the Afripads Sales Manager, said they expected to be fully using local raw materials by 2020.
He added that Afripads was engaging the Uganda National Bureau of Standards to come up with standards for reusable sanitary pads to avoid using the requirements for disposable ones.
The collected reusable will be distributed to the selected schools at a later date.
