Nassuuna Grassroots Education Initiative with Ugandan schoolgirls holding reusable sanitary pads

Uganda · Girls' Education · Climate Action

Empowering girls,
healing the planet,
one pad at a time.

The Nassuuna Grassroots Education Initiative — a community-driven movement at the intersection of girls' education, menstrual health, and climate action in Uganda.

Support a girl's education Understand the problem

The problem

The barrier
nobody talks about.

1 in 10

Ugandan girls miss up to 4 school days every single month due to lack of menstrual products — nearly 40 days of lost learning each year.

Source · UNICEF Uganda

65%+

of women and girls across Sub-Saharan Africa cannot afford commercial sanitary products, making menstrual poverty one of the most invisible drivers of school dropout.

Source · WaterAid, 2023

25%

adolescent pregnancy rate in Uganda — one of the highest in sub-Saharan Africa. Girls who leave school early are most vulnerable to early marriage.

Source · Uganda DHS, 2022

125–150 kg

of menstrual waste generated per person in a lifetime from disposables. In communities without formal waste management, it ends up in soils and waterways.

Source · Environmental Audit Committee, UK

Behind every statistic is a girl who simply needs a pad to stay in school.

Our story

Born from observation,
built from action.

The Nassuuna Grassroots Education Initiative is not designed in an office. It grows out of a direct and persistent observation: girls are disappearing from classrooms not because of a lack of talent or will, but because of a lack of something as basic as a sanitary pad.

We do not respond with charity. We respond with knowledge, skills, and community. We provide girls with reusable sanitary pads and teach them to make their own using locally available materials — so that no girl ever has to choose between her dignity and her education.

Vision

A Uganda where every girl's education is never interrupted by the absence of a sanitary pad — and where communities rise by lifting each other.

Mission

To empower rural Ugandan girls through menstrual health education, reusable sanitary pads, and climate literacy — building self-sustaining communities where girls stay in school, lead with knowledge, and protect their environment.

Our impact

What we are
building.

Every number here represents a girl who is staying in school — and now has the tools, knowledge, and skills to keep going.

2,000+

girls reached across four districts in Uganda

educational sessions on menstrual, reproductive & climate literacy

150

reusable sanitary towels distributed to girls in acute need

districts reached through school & community outreach

∞

girls trained to make their own pads from local materials

What we do

Our four pillars.

Girls' Education

We work directly inside schools and communities to keep girls enrolled, engaged, and equipped. Education is not just our goal — it is our method.

Menstrual Health & Dignity

Workshops on reproductive and menstrual health that break silence and stigma. Girls leave with knowledge, reusable pads, and the skills to make more.

Climate Literacy

We connect menstrual poverty to the broader environmental crisis. Reusable pads reduce single-use plastic — turning a personal solution into environmental action.

Community Empowerment

We train girls to train others. School pad-making clubs create peer networks that carry the work forward without us. The community becomes the engine.

The climate connection

When a pad becomes an act of climate action.

Single-use plastic menstrual products contribute to an estimated 200,000 tonnes of waste globally every year — most of which ends up in landfills or waterways. In rural Ugandan communities with little to no formal waste infrastructure, this environmental burden falls hardest on the people who can least afford to carry it.

We provide girls with reusable sanitary pads and teach them to make their own from locally sourced materials. One reusable pad replaces hundreds of disposables over its lifetime. Multiplied across thousands of girls in four districts, this is not simply a health intervention — it is measurable, community-led environmental action.

99%

reduction in menstrual waste footprint when switching from disposable to reusable products. Across 2,000 girls, the cumulative impact is significant.

Journal of Cleaner Production, adapted

Our work sits at the intersection of SDG 5, SDG 4, and SDG 13. For the girls we work with, they are not separate goals — they are the same goal.

The SDGs

Grounded in global goals.

SDG

Gender Equality

The foundation of everything we do. When a girl stays in school, the trajectory of her entire life shifts.

SDG

Quality Education

We do not just keep girls in school. We make school a place that genuinely serves them.

SDG

Climate Action

Every reusable pad made is a reduction in plastic waste. Girls own their role as environmental stewards.

SDG

Health & Wellbeing

Menstrual health is health. Breaking stigma reduces infection, shame, and long-term reproductive harm.

SDG

Reduced Inequalities

Menstrual poverty is an inequality. Addressing it closes a gap that money and policy alone cannot.

The model

A cycle that sustains itself.

Learn

Girls attend sessions on menstrual health, reproductive health, and climate literacy.

Receive & Make

Girls receive reusable pads and are trained to make their own from local materials.

Form clubs

Girls form school clubs, produce pads, share skills with peers, and build a self-sustaining supply.

Expand

Clubs reach younger girls and mothers across the wider community — and the cycle continues.

We do not create dependency. We create capability.

In the field

Together, we learn.

Girls across Uganda receiving reusable pad kits, joining menstrual health workshops, and learning to sew their own pads from locally sourced materials — dignity restored, one classroom at a time.