Uganda’s Union Transport Alliance (The Union) has been commended for launching a campaign against ‘period poverty’ that will help address high countrywide school dropouts by girls and also check teenage pregnancy.
Following the recent successful launch of Union Sanitary Pads under the KILI CLEAR Campaign on 20th June 2026, the Union Transport Alliance (UNION), in partnership with The Mental Health Awareness Initiative (TMHAI), has today officially launched the campaign’s flagship corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, “1 Million Pads for 1 Million Girls”, at the Uganda Media Centre.
“The cause is big. We have stories of girls failing to go to school because of a lack of enough menstrual packs, and that dropout rate is partly responsible for the high teenage pregnancy rates we have in the country of 25%,” remarked Dr Richard Mugahi, the Commissioner for Reproductive, Maternal and Child Health at the Uganda Ministry of Health.
He added that “some of the hurdles girls face are a lack of a comprehensive approach towards their menstrual issues, and we want to use the opportunity as we give out the pads to discuss their health and how they can handle their early reproductive life. Menstrual health is not just about providing sanitary products; it is about protecting the health, dignity, and future of our girls.”
Dr Richard Mugahi was speaking at the launch of The Union event that marks the next phase of the KILI CLEAR Campaign, translating a commitment to affordable menstrual hygiene into direct community impact by mobilizing sanitary pad donations for vulnerable school-going girls across Uganda.
He was joined at the launch by the leaders of The Union, led by CEO Fred Ssenoga, MP Andrew Ojok Oulanyah, Chairperson of the Committee on ICT & National Guidance and Diana Ampaire, the National Female Youth Member of Parliament who was named the face of the campaign.
The KILI CLEAR Campaign was introduced to make high-quality, affordable sanitary pads accessible to women and girls. The “1 Million Pads for 1 Million Girls” initiative now extends that vision further to ensure that Uganda’s most vulnerable girls receive sanitary pads, enabling them to stay in school with dignity and confidence.
Across Uganda, period poverty remains one of the leading contributors to poor academic performance and absenteeism, with 1 out of 4 girls dropping out of school. Through this initiative, Union and TMHAI aim to mobilize public and private sector support to distribute one million Union sanitary pad packs to one million girls.
Leveraging Union’s extensive nationwide grassroots network, the campaign will coordinate resource mobilization and drive public awareness to deliver meaningful social impact to schools in underserved communities across Uganda.
The commitment was shown by the presence at the launch of the leaders of the national boda boda, bus, truck and taxi bodies.
Speaking at the launch, Fred Ssenoga Bagenda, Chief Executive Officer of the Union Transport Alliance, said, “Today, we are taking our promise to make sanitary pads affordable for every woman and girl even further. Through the ‘1 Million Pads for 1 Million Girls’ initiative, we are not only providing affordable products but also reaching girls who cannot afford them at all. This is a national movement to ensure that no girl ever misses school because of her period.”
The initiative also supports Uganda’s National Menstrual Health Guidelines by expanding access to menstrual hygiene products, promoting menstrual health awareness, and contributing to improved educational outcomes for girls.
MP Ojok said period poverty is deeply connected to the wider challenges of poverty in communities. “When you look at regions like Karamoja, West Nile, and other underserved areas, you see that the burden is even greater.”
“I commend the partners for creating a campaign where contributions can be tracked from the donor to the beneficiary school. Transparency and accountability are critical in building trust and ensuring real impact.”
A donation of UGX 20,000 provides one pack of 100 Union Sanitary Pads—enough to support one girl for an entire year. Contributions can be made by dialing *289*9#, with donors able to support schools of their choice or Union-designated beneficiary schools.
Today’s sanitary pad initiative follows another recent launch of an all-in-one daily mobile phone bundle designed specifically for Uganda’s informal sector.
Uganda’s transport sector—long fragmented, informal, and underserved—has lacked the structure, financing, and coordination needed to unlock its full economic potential.
Uganda’s Union Transport Alliance (The Union) comprises leaders of the taxi, bus, boda boda and truck sectors across the country and, as CEO Ssenoga has outlined, is developing an economic vehicle to transform the country and support Uganda’s 10-Fold Growth Strategy to expand the country’s GDP from $50 billion to $500 billion by 2040.
This, he stressed, will be done through the union’s commitment to improving the everyday lives of the people in the informal sector, particularly transport sector communities across Uganda.
This progress has already been accelerated by strong, high-impact partnerships with leading institutions, including NSSF, MTN, Housing Finance Bank, Spiro, Next Media and others, enabling the Union to deliver financing, connectivity, mobility solutions, and nationwide visibility to its members.
“Building on this foundation, the alliance represents a horizontal expansion across the entire transport ecosystem—integrating boda bodas, taxis, buses, and truck operators onto one unified platform. This coordinated structure enables shared access to financing, technology, partnerships, and markets,” an economics expert said recently.
At its core, the Alliance is designed as a commercial platform (“supermarket”) for already existing products such as the Union ride-hailing app, bike loans, Union water, smartphones and Union Oil, the newly launched Union Data Bundle, as well as future products such as Union matatus (taxis), Union buses, Union trucks, tyres, spare parts, electric cars, backpacks, laptops, scholastic materials and many more.
The Alliance, the first of its kind in the region, also opens the door for deeper collaboration with partners across the mobility, financial, manufacturers and other service providers, offering access to one of the largest organized transport networks in the region.
