Nakaan Lilian receiving a donation of dignity kits from Afriyan in their office - courtesy

An advocacy group has appealed to well-wishers to donate dignity kits to help keep girls in school across the country.

According to the UN children’s agency, girls who stay home the days they are menstruating miss anywhere from 36 to 72 days of school per year.

UNICEF says this is an immense amount of education lost.

Caring Heart Initiative for Community Development has launched a campaign to collect sanitary pads for vulnerable schoolgirls across the country.

The campaign dubbed, “Keep her in School to donate a pad” aims at helping over 2000 girls who cannot afford dignity kits.

According to the cofounder of the local NGO, school girls across the country continue to skip classes due to inaccessibility of sanitary pads to manage their monthly menstrual cycle in a dignified way.

“I am calling for everybody to join this campaign that we have started already that is ongoing up to next year so that we will be able to keep girls in school and sustain their education,” Faida Mary told Eye Radio.

For her part, Nakaan Lilian, the team leader of the campaign explains how inaccessibility of dignity kits affects school girls in the country.

“One of the basic needs to stay in school full time is the sanitary pad because every month they go through the menstrual cycle, some don’t have the ability to acquire that and their parents may not afford,” Nakaan said.

“At least they [girls] miss 4 to 5 days in a month because they can’t afford the dignity kits, if a girl misses 5 days every month in a term that means she can miss at least 15 days of every term.

“These five days every month differ from one girl to another because others have longer days for their menstruation.”

Launched last month, the “Keep girl in school, donate a pad” campaign is to help girls stay in school while they are menstruating.

For a person to donate, call on 0-9-2-9-7-7-7-8-2-8.