Our Story
Friends Of Jerome Foundation, we are a registered charity organization, we go deep into the communities helping vulnerable children and families living in extreme poverty our continuous engagement with these communities enabled us to identify a problem, a lot of teenage girls are missing school though the government of Uganda provide free education for all programs namely Universal Primary Education (UPE) and Universal Secondary Education (USE) has main policy tools for achieving poverty reduction and human development.
How it all started
On Tuesday, March 2021 it was a school day when we visited Ms. Mariam’s home (a widow) with three orphan grandchildren two girls and one a boy.
we found Valeria, 14 (Mariam’s oldest granddaughter) at home she had missed school, when we asked about why she missed school, her grandmother replied, “Valeria is on her monthly periods and I cannot afford to buy her sanitary pads, and she always miss school because the rags she use are uncomfortable for her in public and sometimes they leak” she said.
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We wanted to solve Valeria’s problem, we went to the nearest store 2 kilometers away, and purchased two sachets of non-reusable sanitary pads, which we donated to Valeria, so that she can attend school the following day. But Valeria did not act selfishly, she told us about her friends at school who face the same problem. On 21st May 2021, our chairperson visited Valeria and her friends at the technical school they attended on Sunday evening and donated sanitary pads, learning materials, laundry soap, petroleum jerry and underwear, empowering them to stay in school and to have their periods in dignity.
Valeria receiving tailoring materials at school.
Valeria’s school friend receiving pair of sanitary pads, pair of clean underwear, laundry bar soap and petroleum jerry.
Coming back to our offices, the chairperson in the meeting he addressed the issue of menstrual hygiene management among women and girls to the board members, we made research about menstrual hygiene management and how poor menstrual hygiene management can affect a girl’s education, financial development and her entire life. we launched a girls and women empowerment program, called THE PAD PROGRAMME.