Girl Calendars and period talk in over 20 institutions

Over 20 institutions in two and a half years. Schools, correctional facilities for juveniles, children's homes and safe houses. In each of them, Girls for Generations Initiative has provided young girls with mentorship and material resources, among them sanitary towels and Girl Calendars to track their periods.

Branis Mugashia Keiza founded the initiative and serves as its Project Manager. She describes it as a Community Based Organization working to create awareness among young adolescent girls on proper menstrual and feminine hygiene practices and on ending period stigma. The sessions also cover Sexual Reproductive Health Rights and Sexual and Gender Based Violence, and they bring in environmental awareness by teaching proper disposal of used sanitary materials.

“Growth starts where your comfort zone ends, I chose growth.”

Branis Mugashia Keiza

The idea came from her own life. She grew up, she says, "in a marginalized town where young girls lacked access to resources and information on basic hygiene especially around menstruation." That lived experience, she says, is what inspired her to found the organisation.

The sessions are built on peer mentorship. Girls talk to girls. Artistic expressive practices are woven in, which she says boosts the girls' attentiveness and lets the team engage them closely while handling sensitive topics.

Her aim, as she puts it, is "to create a community and a world at large of women who are not only aware but also enjoy a smooth journey of their womanhood."

The outcome she is working towards is fewer girls leaving school. What she hopes for is "reducing school drop out cases due to period shame."

The initiative is also looking for conferences, fellowships and workshops that would give its trainees guidance and mentorship, she says, so that they are "equiped fully so as to serve the young girls with efficient and reliable information".