Sewing pads with baby
Maggie Crosby, Maternal & Child Health Program
During her summer internship Maggie worked at Pader Girls’ Academy (PGA), a unique boarding school in northern Uganda. PGA students are primarily adolescent mothers. It is the only school in Uganda where teen mothers can continue their studies and keep their children with them at school. Maggie worked to create a sexual and reproductive health curriculum to be integrated into the school’s existing academic curriculum. She also led an advocacy workshop where students learned toarticulate their need for basic hygiene resources, and write letters to large companies requesting support.
This campaign was hugely successful and acted as a great encouragement to the students.
Sex education lesson
At the end of the term, students were supplied with underwear and menstrual pads and taught how to sew their own pads, and accessed three days of onsite clinics which included family planning services, HIV testing and vaccinations for students and their children. PGA is a place of devastating need, but incredible hope and opportunity.