About Us
Happy Girls Project is a grassroots community-based organization dedicated to ending period poverty in Uganda and empowering vulnerable Ugandan girls and women.
Did you know that, in Uganda, 1 out of 4 girls drops out of school because of their periods?
Our organization provides menstrual health education, access to menstrual hygiene products, and supports sustainable menstrual hygiene management practices. Our goal is to increase access to menstrual hygiene products and destigmatize menstruation in Uganda.
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We also provide gender-based violence education as well as a safe space for girls and women to discuss what they are going through.
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We have recently started Happy Girls Travels, a community-based tourism center led by women, with the aim to have more women working in the tourism industry in Uganda. All profits generated by Happy Girls Travels go to Happy Girls Project and to supporting women's education and who want to start their own business (through loans, mentoring, etc.).
How it all started
"The inspiration behind my urge or quest, to ensure menstruation hygiene for young school-going rural girls stemmed or can be traced back to the kind of problems me and my peers faced when we were still in primary school. Back then, the conditions were even worse than now in the rural schools, especially with our parents not being able to provide.
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This led me to set up a project in 2018, to try and provide some cheap and creative incentives to empower these girls through my project now known as Happy Girls Project.
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All over the world, girls face unthinkable challenges when they begin menstruation. Girls without access to low cost, convenient and reliable sanitary pads must resort to less effective solutions that often leak such as leaves, unsanitary scraps of cloth, husk ash, and sand. Most young women lack privacy to be able to wash and dry reusable cloth pads. Without access to clean water, dangerous bacteria can grow on cloth pads and menstrual cups. Imported pads are plastic, difficult to dispose of and expensive.
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Without access to hygiene products girls can miss up to 50 days of school per year, causing them to fall behind in class and be ill-prepared for national exams that would have given them a chance to receive an education.
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Other barriers to education include the dis-empowerment that comes from menstruation. Inconvenience and taboos, social marginalisation and low self-esteem result because of lack of awareness around menstrual health. It is to fight for menstrual equity that I decided to start this project."
Harriet Rwosa, Happy Girls Project founder
We believe that every girl and woman deserves access to menstrual hygiene products and knowledge to make informed decisions. We envision a world where menstruation is not a barrier to education, work, or daily life.
Our Mission
Happy Girls Project's mission is to support the education of girls in Uganda.
We work towards our mission by educating communities about menstrual hygiene management, providing access to menstrual hygiene products to vulnerable girls and women, and advocating for gender-sensitive policies that support menstrual health. We also educate girls and boys about gender-based violence.
Our Vision
We envision a world where girls and women all have access to menstrual hygiene products and are empowered to manage their menstrual health with dignity and respect.
Our Values
Here at Happy Girls Project, we see the value in everyone. We want to be a catalyst for positive change, and since our beginnings in 2018, we’ve been driven by the same ideas we initially founded our Non-Profit Organisation upon: support, empowerment, and progress.
Meet the Team
Our Team, Our Ride or Die, Our Happy Girls Family.
