【Environmental Protection】Activity Report2022 Sep-Oct Promoting clean environment through environmental education and garbage collection

Non-decomposing garbage that includes plastic bottles at the collection point where sorting takes place

<Progress of each activity>

 

Activity 1.2 Thirty (30) minutes’ environmental education talks conducted for 10 months

In respect to the above activity, 2 radio talk shows were conducted by the Project Officer on 16/09/2022 and 07/10/2022 which ran for 30 minutes at Luna FM Kibalinga. These were intended to create awareness about the use of the garbage containers, sorting of garbage and recycling. It was also intended to inform the community about respecting the monitoring team and to work hand in hand to keep the community clean.

 

Pictorial

Activity 1.3 An environmental education and awareness raising jingle/spot message aired 5 times a day

Airing of spot messages on Luna Fm radio in Kibalinga to create awareness about proper garbage management in the community thus improving sanitation and hygiene. These messages are aired 5 times a day to ensure that people acquire basic information about garbage.

 

<Spot Messages>   Fellow Ugandans, did you know that poor garbage disposal negatively affects both an  individual and the entire community in households and in the community. Poor garbage disposal can cause dangerous diseases like Cholera and Diarrhea that are harmful to our lives. Burning of garbage anyhow can lead to environmental degradation.    Therefore, SORAK has come out to provide support by engaging in sensitization of community members about proper garbage management, through providing containers where garbage is disposed, a vehicle collects garbage to the collection points where sorting and recycling of garbage aimed to keep the environment clean is conducted from.    Therefore, it is advised that we work together in this call to improve sanitation and hygiene in Lusalira community.    This message is brought to you by SORAK together with Global Bridge Network-Japan

 

Activity 2.1 Ten (10) garbage containers/skips procured and stationed at 5 different places to encourage and support garbage sorting and safe disposal.

These were bought and stationed as planned in the 5 different places. Two containers were stationed at each point to enable proper garbage sorting. Garbage is sorted accordingly as the ones that decompose are separated from the ones that do not decompose like plastic bottles.

 

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Next plan

·         Decomposable garbage is being taken to gardens by interested farmers.

·         SORAK plans to make manure from decomposable garbage but this may not be feasible because farmers take this garbage continuously.

 

<Positive influences>

·         Community members appreciated the work done by the monitoring committee to keep the environment clean and promised to work hand in hand with them.

·         Farmers in the community welcomed the idea of garbage sorting whereby they are willing to engage in the process and use the decomposed garbage in their gardens as manure.

·         Listeners appreciated the radio talk shows that aim at promoting hygiene and sanitation in the community. This was evidenced by the 10 calls and messages they made during conducting of the talk shows.

·         Most community members have adopted to proper use of the garbage containers. They sort garbage by disposing the ones that decompose in one container and the ones that do not in another container which has enabled proper garbage sorting.

·         Community members appreciated the spot messages that are aired 5 times as a day as they keep on reminding them about what to do to keep their community clean.

 

<Challenges faced during conducting of activities >

·       Too much expectations from the community monitoring group. They requested for daily facilitation with money for lunch, airtime to help them during monitoring of the activity but the Director advised them to make use of the available resources and also focus on improving the cleanliness of the community

·       Due to Ebola pandemic, a lockdown was imposed on Mubende on the 16/10/2022 which made a number of activities to be put on hold till the situation improves hence affecting the programs that were met to take place during that period.

 

<Lessons Learnt>

·       It was learnt that the monitoring committee, community members and local leaders appreciated the project and requested SORAK to keep up the spirit of bringing such wonderful projects that improve the wellbeing of the community.

·       Simple tasks like garbage sorting are not easily appreciated by local communities unless motivated by the prospect of selling garbage or making use of it. This was learnt after realizing that community members were encouraged to sort garbage because they knew that they would both sell plastics and take decomposable garbage to their gardens. Community members now actively sort garbage and take plastics for sell. SORAK is not involved in the selling of these because leaders resolved that the community would take it up on themselves to sort and sell.

 

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*This project is is supported by the fund form TAISEI CORPORATION

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【Environmental Protection】Monitoring visit to Kibalinga Subcounty leadership, August 2022

 

<Progress of the monitoring visit>

a)     Visit Subcounty leadership and hear about trash project

b)     Visit trash collection points

c)     Visit LUNA FM radio station and make speech responsible for garbage management information dissemination

 

a)     Visit Subcounty leadership and hear about trash project

On the 30/07/2022 the GBN team arrived in Uganda and on the 31/07/2022 the team arrived in Mubende. While in Mubende, the team was involved in several monitoring visits including the visit to Kibalinga Sub-County leadership on the 03/08/2022 in order to assess the impact of the project activities.

At the sub-county hall, the team held a meeting with the sub county leadership which involved generating feed back from the leaders regarding the project and come up with a way forward on how the project activities shall be sustained.

In attendance were the different local council leaders including 11 male and 4 female. The SORAK staff included the Project Officer, Executive Director and the Projects Manager.

The following was the feedback from the members regarding the project.

All members appreciated the initiative because it had contributed towards the general cleanliness of the community hence environmental conservation.

They however had the following concerns and requests,

·       The leader in charge of defense requested for more trash cans in order to ensure that all points are covered for effective management of the garbage.

·       Members had never dreamt of such initiatives to happen in their community and credited the development partners for the support, however they requested for support towards youth livelihood projects for example poultry.

·       The chairperson for Persons with Disabilities noted that a total number of 320 persons with disabilities live within the community. He requested for support towards the provision of sewing of machines, wheel chairs and crutches in order for them to be able to sustain themselves.

·       A member mentioned that these is no public toilet around the market area, thus water flow is polluted with human excrement.

·       Members requested that support towards the boy child should also be given priority as a number of boys face a lot of challenges in the community and currently projects focusing on girls have increased.

·       A member of an environmental NPO mentioned that he would like to learn about environmental policies, projects, and garbage collecting/ sorting systems in a developed country like Japan because environmental issues are not actively addressed in Uganda.

 

Activity photographs

Recommendations towards project sustainability

·       There should be continuous awareness creation regarding proper garbage disposal especially when it comes to sorting the garbage.

·       Leaders were encouraged to be exemplary as they continue to create awareness regarding proper garbage disposal.

·       There should be by-laws bucked up with fines to the defaulters of proper garbage management.

·       Enforce the environmental act whereby every community member is supposed to get involved into activities directed towards ensuring community hygiene and failure to do so, the person is subjected to a fine.

·       The previous practice regarding garbage management will be emphasized whereby, community members are encouraged to contribute a small amount of money. For example, 500/= for the garbage containers to be emptied for garbage to be taken to the dumping sites.

 

b)    Visit trash collection points

After holding a meeting with sub-county leadership, the team had time to visit the different points where the garbage containers are stationed. This was to confirm if the containers had been stationed in the respective points. There after they had a movie interview regarding what they had found out during the monitoring exercise.

 

Findings

·         At each point, 2 trash containers are set up; one can is for plastics and another one for organic wastes. However, in all trash cans plastic wastes and organic wastes are mixed.

·         When we interviewed local venders who are selling food around the trash cans, they did not know that two trash cans are marked differently and they are for different types of trash.

·         We team encouraged members to creatively solve their challenges such as a lack of trash containers. For example, we suggested to use basket made of plants or wooden boxes as trash cans.

·         Even though the amount of trash has decreased, there are still a lot of trash was illegally dumped.

 

c)   Visit LUNA FM radio station and make speech responsible for garbage management information dissemination

The team visited Luna FM studios but did not have time to make a speech regarding garbage management.

 

Challenges

·       Too much expectations from the local leaders, we mitigated this by clearly explaining to them that GBN team purposely came to monitor the progress of the implemented projects.

 

Positive influence

·       The leaders were willing to share the impact of the project.

 

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*This project is is supported by the fund form TAISEI CORPORATION

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【MHM Start-up Project】Activity report from VLF

Hello,

A start-up project by interns aiming at providing reusable sanitary pads to girls in Naguru primary school, located in one of the slum areas of Naguru.

crowd-funding：https://readyfor.jp/projects/thankyousupport_uganda

We received a message from girl-students showing their appreciation for receiving the sewing machines we purchased for them with the use of the donation that we got from the crowd-funding (Thanks to all of you).

We received an activity report from Uganda on 14th August talking about the following. 

 ・Naguru slum tour

 ・Meeting the school administration

 ・Meeting the students from MHM club

 ・Giving out the hand-made reusable pads which the interns had produced as part of a volunteer activity when they were in high school

 ・Handing over a sewing machine we purchased with the funds collected from crowd-funding

 Please refer to the activity report we received from our team in Uganda!

MHM Project Report_20220814

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【MHM Start-up Project】Visiting Naguru primary school

 

On the day of 13th August, we started our activity by purchasing sewing machines, tools, clothes, and other materials for pad making.

 

While at the market during the time of purchase, the interns tried using the pedal sewing machine for the first time, but it was more difficult than they had thought since they had to focus on using both feet and at the same time, what they were sewing. We realized that it should take a while to get used to the machines if the users do not have any experience.  

On 16th August, we implemented an outreach at Naguru Creative infant nursery and primary school in Kampala municipality, Naguru parish together with Daisy our counterpart from Visionary Lady Foundation who has been actively working on the MHM issues in one of the slum areas of Naguru by establishing MHM clubs and conducting workshops regarding MHM.

The interns were quite surprised to see the slum situation in Kampala for the first time.

 

On our arrival at school, we had an opportunity to talk with the head master and learned that the school receives many students but most of them cannot afford the necessary materials such as textbooks, pens, and uniforms etc. and also have many other concerns and difficulties at school.

After that the school provided us with a slum tour led by the director and the head teacher who was well acquainted with the area. While moving around, the team met local families who were mostly led by single mothers. One of the mothers we talked to supports five children living on an income of 2000UGX a day which is about 0.5 USD which explained why some children resort to sometime missing classes so as to help their parents/family or even end up just working instead of going to school.  

 

When we came back to school from the slum tour, the students welcomed us with a traditional dance performance and a short play regarding MHM.

Some of the parts within the play, boys were teasing a girl with a blood-stained cloth in class and the girl rushed out of the classroom feeling embarrassed. But after boys receiving an MHM lecture and attaining proper knowledge, they no longer teased girls. Which also showed the importance of involving both boys and girls in MHM issues.

After the performances, we conducted an online exchange program by connecting Ugandan school students with high school students in Japan via ZOOM online. 

 Then interns finally hand-delivered the pads they brought all the way from Japan to the Ugandan girl- students. It was such a happy moment for both the interns for handing over the pads in person and also to the receiving students with plenty of smiles. 

 

After having lunch, the sewing machines we purchased were finally delivered to the school facility. We were happy to see one of the students excited and trying to use the machine for the first time. We had a concern that students may not be able to make pads if they did not have enough experience, but Daisy explained assuring us that they are already having plans of hiring tailors to train the students which somehow made us relieved.  

After installing the sewing machines, interns took a moment to talk and interact with MHM club members who were almost within the same generation.

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【MHM Start-up Project】Crowdfunding campaign

This year 2022, we have had two interns Miyu and Rio who are university students joining our team. When they were high school students, they created a volunteer activity about hand-made sanitary pads production in order to send such pads to the girls who have challenges with menstruation issues in developing countries. Since GBN has been working in the same field, we decided to work with them to support their passion and managed to go to Uganda together for them to also participate and hand their 260 produced pads directly.

It all started on 5th May 2022, when we coordinated for the interns to first have a zoom meeting with some of the girl-students in one of the targeted schools in Naguru primary school in Uganda and found out that some students cannot go to school during their times of menstruation periods due to luck of enough sanitary products available and that they were using old pieces of clothes as a substitution. Daisy, a founder of VLF (Visionary Lady Foundation), and as well our counterpart in Uganda who has been trying to tackle this problem under her organization and has had several workshops to educate school-girls regarding menstrual hygiene management, also reported that due to insufficient funds to buy sewing machines and other materials to make pads, students normally had no option but to use the old pieces of clothes.

Therefore, the interns started a crowd-funding campaign before traveling to Uganda in order to purchase a sewing machine, a button installation, and some other essential materials needed for pad making such as clothes, needles, threads, etc.  Having in mind that, with providing these materials at school, students can then make their own sanitary pads so as to have sanitary products available which will help them to solve the problem of missing classes during their menstruation periods.

This will in the long run also help all women in the community that get a chance to participate in using these materials and have difficulties in going to the public or for work due to menstrual related issues. At the same time, by setting this facility at a public place like at school, it is also a chance for boys to have opportunities to learn about issues related to menstrual hygiene management so that they can also be able to assist their girl-child friends or family members in case they get into the same situations. 

This project is not yet completed but rather just the beginning. We shall first focus at setting up a supporting environment at our target school, Naguru primary school through providing sanitary pads to all girl students. After that we are planning to develop this project to distributing pads to other schools as well as setting a goal of reaching out to over a 1000 people in need in the community. 

We used the approach of providing pad making materials too since we thought and believed it to be the best way to support the local people through not only always providing them with finished products but to also help them learn how to make pads on their own and how to use them properly so that they can share it within the community to continue resolving menstrual related issues by themselves.

The fund we have attained this time would be used mainly for pad making but also for investigation purposes on other matters ie, education related issues, water, sanitation and hygiene facilities at school etc.

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【Educational Environment】 Monthly Report Sep 2022 " Procured sewing machines, purchased MHM T-Shirts"

 

Team after cnducting the radio talk show at radio Butende

<Activities conducted>                                                        

1.     Procured sewing machines for Mubende and Wakiso

2.     Purchased MHM T-Shirts for Mubende and Wakiso

3.     Radio talk show in Butambala

4.     Air Spot Messages to raise awareness on support for girls’ education and increase on reusable sanitary pad users

5.     Happy pad centre in Wakiso

6.     Updates on renovation of schools (Christ the King and Kiyita Primary Schools) in Mubende

 

1.     Procured Sewing machines for Mubende and Wakiso

There are 20 Sewing machines that were purchased to be supplied in the 20 respective schools in Mubende and Wakiso.

Pictorial

 

2.     Purchased MHM T-Shirts for Mubende and Wakiso

T-Shirts were procured for the MHM Club members in the respective schools. 25 dozen were purchased having 300 T-shirts for the 20 schools. 

Pictorial

3.   Radio Talk Show in Butanbala

One hour talk show conducted at Voice of Butende on 25^th September 2022. The community was reminded about the need to support adolescent girls especially those that cannot afford sanitary material so that they can comfortably stay at school.

The major talking point was about the reusable pads that the team was yet to introduce in the target schools, how to make them, how to use the pads and how to keep them clean.

 

4.   Air Spot Messages to raise awareness on support for girls’ education and increase on reusable sanitary pad users

Spot messages about Menstrual Hygiene Management, girls’ education and reusable sanitary pad are aired as follows;

·      Mubende via Luna FM 6 times a day.

·      Wakiso via Voice Kiryagonja 2 times a day.

·      Butambala Spot messages aired 11 times at Voice of Butende and 10 times at Voice of Kikambwe

 

5.   Happy pad promotion centre in Wakiso

A total of 45 pads were produced this month. 23 students were trained and 9 outsiders from the community visited the promotion centre. Bags for packaging pads were made and took for branding. These will be ready next month and pads will be packaged for marketing. The main target market are secondary schools and retail shops within the community. Selling of pads will start as soon as the branding process is completed. We intend to sell a package containing a pair of pads at 8000 Ugx. A professional tailor for the pad centre was identified for pad making, cutting and aligning.

Pictorial

 

6.     Updates on renovation of schools (Christ the King and Kiyita Primary Schools) in Mubende.

Christ the King Primary School constructed a toilet and a wash room facility at the school.  The facility is still under construction not yet completed.

The status is still the same as Head teacher of Kiyita Primary School promised to finish renovation after parents’ finish harvesting their crops and pay school fees.

We also have to note that Christ the King is a community school with no government funding. They have made every effort to reach this far with SORAK mobilization. It is hoped that this will be completed during the December long holiday in preparation for the new academic year 2023.

Pictorial

 

Positive influence

·       Menstrual hygiene management has greatly improved among pupils since they know how to handle themselves during their menstruation for example, girls no longer miss classes because of menstruation as they see it as a normal situation, boys no longer laugh at girls when they are in periods, they can manage their periods well using pads, clean pants among others

·       The quality of pads improved since a professional tailor was hired to work at the promotion Centre (Promotion Center, Wakiso)

·       Learners at the pad Centre have gained pad making skills (Promotion Center, Wakiso)

·       Newly enrolled trainees are helped by some of their colleagues who joined before them at the promotion Centre (Promotion Center, Wakiso)

·       Members of the community and young children are now familiar with the message especially in areas near the stations (Butambala)

 

Challenges

·       Some schools had incomplete facilities for example Kiyita Primary School due to inadequate funds but they promised to complete the facilities as soon as parents harvest their crops and pay school fees (Mubende)

·       Some of the trainees are slow learners who require extra time to pick but they are helped by some of their colleagues who pick quickly and those that joined before (Promotion Center, Wakiso)

·       Absenteeism of some MHM club students due to economic hardships faced by parents to raise school fees making some to miss out some trainings. This is mitigated by engaging them when they return to school (taking them through what they missed) (Wakiso)

 

Lessons learnt

·       It is important to start encouraging beneficiaries to come up with creative solutions to solve some of the prevailing challenges like inadequate funds to finish up renovation which they can address by making use of the locally available resources

 

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*This project is implemented under JICA's Kusanone Partnership Program.

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