Making Cloth Menstrual Pads With Baker

In Uganda, a lot of girls drop out of school once they start to menstruate.  They sometimes can't afford to buy pads at the store or aren't able to go to the latrine frequently enough to keep from getting blood on their clothes and being embarrassed or teased by other children.  Some girls even use dirty rags or banana fibers if they can't buy pads.

Baker, one of the graduates of TLT from Soroti, noticed this problem and wanted to do something about it.  As one of his TLT action plans, he decided to come up with a way to make re-usable pads out of cloth so more girls would stay in school.  This is Baker:

He went with me to Kaberamaido, where he taught the staff of our partner organization (KMDP) how he makes these pads.  He came up with the idea and the pattern on his own - he didn't even know that there are patterns for these online.  He just traces a store-bought pad on fabric and then sews the whole thing by hand.

He uses nice cotton fabric for the outer lining and then makes an insert out of cotton gauze and surgical paper.

After demonstrating, he made sure that all of the staff made one too.

Here is the one that I made:

Since there is no adhesive on these pads and snaps or velcro would make it cost more, he makes two little straps that can be tied together to hold the pad onto underwear.

I missed the day of training women in the community because I had something else to do the next day, but I am sure it was a great time.  Baker is very comfortable sharing about reproductive health to both men and women and is making a big difference in the lives of people he meets.