A platform founded by Makerere University academic and human rights activist Stella Nyanzi has so far raised !1 million shillings in a bid to avail sanitary pads for school going girls in Uganda.
According to Ruth Muganzi, another woman activist, the initiative had by this morning raised Shs4.4 million through mobile money remittances and US$2, 000 (about Shs7m) on the GoFundMe platform.
The revelation was made today as the two women appeared on popular NBS TV talkshow ‘Morning Breeze’, where they also blamed the government for doing little to solve the pads’ problem.
The development comes in the wake of recent remarks by the Education and Sports Minister Janet Kataha Museveni, who revealed that government had no money to provide sanitary pads for school-going girls, yet her husband, President Yoweri Museveni, promised to do so in the campaigns leading to the 2016 elections.
“The sanitary pads project is now eight months old; we are looking at distributing 10 million sanitary pads, Ms Muganzi said, adding that initially they had planned to distribute one million pads to a million girls.
Further, Ms Muganzi said they are headed to Masaka for their first assignment, where they will talk to 250 schoolgirls and also give them a ‘pack of pads and two reusable pads for rotational purposes’.
And, speaking during the show Dr. Nyanzi, in her traditional self, attacked the government of President Museveni, saying it was disrespectful to Ugandans and gluttonous.
“The leadership in Uganda is profane. I’m not. All the leaders in this government are obscene,” Dr. Nyanzi, known for her acerbic attacks against perceived bigots, said, adding: “I will not respect those who are disrespecting the poor. I will not hold back when the people are feeding their stomachs instead of the poor.”
It should be recalled that last week Dr. Nyanzi was summoned by the CID in Kibuli to record a statement regarding her social media postings in which she lambasted the President and Mrs. Museveni over the issue of sanitary pads for school-going girls.
On exiting the session she reportedly told journalists that policemen had told her that President Museveni was the complainant in the matter.
Dr Stella Nyanzi first emerged on the public scene when she took on her former boss, the Director of Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR), Prof. Mahmood Mamdani, accusing him of maligning her.
At the time, she even stripped to near-nudity in protest, sending many to scamper including the police officers who had been deployed to restrain her.
