QUEEN OF WEST NILE WANTS BOYS AND GIRLS TO FRONT MENSTRUAL HYGIENE

Alobo Janet Patricia (C), Sabir Musa (R) Coordinator during a press conference ahead of the Pad a Girl Run.
 
By Godwin Abedican
Arua

Stake holders are being called upon to embrace education of the boys and girls on menstrual health so as to help in the fight against to stigma against the girl child during their menstruations.
 
Alobo Jannet Patricia, the Miss West Nile while has therefore organized a run named “Pad a Girl” which will take place in Arua city on Sunday 11th may 2025.
 
Speaking during a press conference ahead of the Arua city “Pad a Girl” charity run she said that menstrual challenges have persistently kept pulling many young girls out of school yet the solution lies in the hand of everyone.
 
“The major reason why I came up with this run is to end period poverty and also stigma related to menstruation especially in primary schools. When you look at the rate at which most pupils drop out of school in Nest Nile and the rate of teenage pregnancy among school going girls, it inspired me to come up with this run to ensure that we look for solutions to this challenge which is ever increasing. I feel like the “Pad a Girl” campaign is one of the ways we can end teenage pregnancy by ensuring that each and every girl can keep In school and through this empowerment of making sure that every girl has access to sanitary pads because it is every girl’s right to have it and it is something that happens every time every month and every year” Alobo said.
 
“We also engage the boychild by teaching them how they can be supportive to the girlchild and how they can create a friendly environment for the girls to end the stigma related to it. It is actually good for us to prioritize menstrual health as people of West Nile to ensure that our girls are informed about it even in school,” she added. 
               
Under the pad a girl campaign the girls and boys are given skills to learn how to make reusable sanitary pads so that they can make their own to uses for given period of time reducing the burden of relying on parents for the same.
 
Sabir Musa, the coordinator for the run anticipates success in the activity given what happened in other districts.
 
“From other places, we made success, like in Pakwach, Zombo and Terego and this hopefully is also going to be successful here if we all work together. The big picture is to improve the menstrual hygiene in our schools especially the target is the girlchild in school but also the plan is to take it out of the school to the community,” he said.
 
Meanwhile Toko Badru, commonly known as T.O.K has been involved in runs over the last ten years and he stresses the need for accountability to always be dome after such initiatives so as to restore and maintain pubic trust and confidence in organizers of such events.
 
“It is very important going forward tat organizers of runs probably get to give accountability and accountability can be for instance when a run s dine, there should be an instant communication on how many kits are sold, and how much money has probably been in a way of donations because sometimes we have baskets that are put there and monies are collected from the people.”
 
“If there were messes or things that went wrong in the previous runs, for the over 10years that my involvement has been as a service provider, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize and to take a blame that, if that was wrong then the next one is right, and the next one is the Pada girl run . We should think about a queen, a young person and I honk it is very important to keep the crown alive and going forward when I am involved in a run, I will take the accountability issue in place such that we address it well,” Toko emphasized.  
     
The pad a girl run targets schools to ensure proper hygiene among girls in the school. The 2-kilometers run that begins with aerobics will be flagged off from the OPM grounds a follows other main road within the city and ends at the starting point.
 
About 1500 have girls have so far benefited from this initiative held in other West Nile Districts.