Kampala — A storied university in Uganda's capital city still delivers achievements, despite years of decline in Africa's institutions of higher learning. A technology-for-development institute at Kampala's Makerere University shows what can be done.
Early in her career, Mirembe Nassuuna learned what recent neurology research has established – that people find happiness in helping others.
The only girl among four brothers, Nassuuna was encouraged to pursue intellectual goals. "My dad is an electrical engineer and good at innovation," she says. She became a civil engineer, specializing in roads.
Ask what drew her to road building, and she connects roads to – well, everything.
"You do a road, a school will be built!" she exclaims. "You do a road, a clinic will come! You do a road and someone will start farming, because now they can take their goods to market!"
And in Uganda, many of those roads lead to the capital, the country's only real city.
With a mix of varied topography, rich culture, bustling nightlife and soaking wetlands, Kampala earned the nickname 'the pearl of Africa'. Built on seven hills, the city is one of the fastest growing in Africa.
Dr. Kiggundu Amin Tamale, executive director of the Centre for Urban Studies and Research, predicts that more than 100 million people will live in Kampala by 2050. The East African Development Bank is headquartered here, making the capital a regional as well as a national hub.
Nassuuna says her city, despite challenges, is becoming greener and cleaner. "People are building Kampala. They OWN their city. It started when we began to improve and maintain the roads."
But as enthusiastic as Nassuuna is about the benefits of roads, about which she can discourse at length, she is just as proud of an initiative she first joined when she was an engineering student at Makerere University.
The Makerere Institute of Social Research, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, found that schoolgirls who reached puberty had high absenteeism rates and many dropped out of school entirely.
"I was in third year," Nassuuna says, "when the president of the Rockefeller Foundation talked about the importance of the girl child staying in school. We asked ourselves, 'What could we do?'."
A lot, it turned out.
The key to the solution was an electrical engineer, Dr. Moses Kizza Musaazi, who is devoted to applying low-cost technology solutions to promoting development, especially for society's poorest people. The Technology for Tomorrow Ltd (T4T) lab, which he founded and directs, is rooted in research and development done at Makerere University, where the institute is housed at the Faculty of Technology.
Musaazi's group began testing a variety of raw materials to find one that could be used to produce a menstrual pad that was cheap, effective, sustainably produced and without negative environmental consequences.
Research showed that as many as 30 percent of Ugandan girls were dropping out of school when they began menstruating. Among those who stayed, many missed as much as a week of classes every month, falling further and further behind.
"We were guinea pigs," says Ussumma about herself and other students associated with the research. Sanitary pads were too costly for most Ugandans, she said. "The problem was, how do we enable the girls to stay in school and be able to achieve? The need was there. It was never going to go away."
She's glad she was there at the beginning. "I'm an engineer, even though they say engineering is for men. I talked to a lot of girls. The problem was there. I was among the people pushing for what can be done."
There were numerous issues to consider. "We had to try out many substances to find a safe material. You don't want a child to get cancer or rashes. We also looked at how to make them biodegradable. People throw them away, sometimes into water channels. They had to be absorbent, so that only one or two a day would be needed, making them cheaper."
The researchers eventually found their material – pulp made from waste paper and softened reed of papyrus, which grows wild in large areas of Uganda. Pads were made, tested, improved and tested again, until the team judged them ready for market, and the National Bureau of Standards approved them.
T4T founder Musaazi is also a senior lecturer in Makerere's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology. He talks about discovering the properties of papyrus in biblical terms. "By God's grace, he told the Economist, "I realised that my name is Moses and if you remember Moses in the Bible, he was hidden along River Nile and his mum made him a basket out of papyrus."
The product is called MakaPads - Maka being an abbreviation of four words: menstruation, administration, knowledge and affordability. Late last year Musaazi won a U.S.$41,400 prize by the Siemens Stiftung Foundation, placing second in the 'empowering people award'.
The foundation said: "Sanitary napkins help women and create jobs. MakaPads are produced from papyrus fibres, paper and water, and without electrical energy. The heat of the sun takes care of the drying process; smoothing and compressing are carried out mechanically. The inserts are 75% cheaper than normal sanitary napkins and 100% biodegradable."
Work on improving the pads has continued – including packaging them in single units, useful for girls and women who suddenly need one but don't have enough money for a package. That model is used by manufacturers of many products, such as washing powder, which are often sold in tiny amounts through kiosks in poor neighborhoods.
"For me as a woman," says Nassunna, "I think it's one of the best things we have done." Limited resources, she believes, should not deter anyone from making a difference, and profit is not the incentive. "It's not about money you can make. There is a need; you look for a way to fill it. Innovation starts from the question – what do I have in my hand to be able to make someone's life better?"
About five million Makapads are made annually, and most of the production is purchased by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which distributes them in refugee camps. Nearly 200,000 people live in Ugandan refugee camps, and some of the camp residents, especially women, earn revenue helping to make the pads.
Makapads cost the equivalent of 60 American cents for a packet of 10 sanitary pads – still too expensive for many Ugandans.
That may be changing.
When disposable pads are not available, girls and women typically use old cloth – often shared among several people. Privacy concerns mean that washed cloth pads are dried out of sight – and out of the cleansing power of sunlight. Infections are common.
A 2013 study funded by the University of Oxford found that MakaPads were regarded as favorably as much more costly commercial alternatives. In addition, most girls choose to spend their limited funds on them, even if given free washable pads.
In May, women members of Uganda's parliament, led by Speaker Rebecca Kadaga, called on the government to make the provision of sanitary pads mandatory under the country's University Primary Education programme. The influential Daily Monitor newspaper announced its support for the campaign. The newspaper said the country's constitution requires the provision of "facilities and opportunities necessary to enhance the welfare of women to enable them realise their full potential and advancement".
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In August, a Menstrual Hygiene Management conference in Kampala gathered local and international partners, including Unicef – the UN Children's Fund, Uganda's Ministry of Health, and the Nairobi, Kenya-based Amref Health Africa under the banner Break the Silence on Menstruation: Keep Girls in School. Among the recommendations were toilet facilities for girls at all schools and the provision of sanitary pads.
Moses and his team at T4T, a 15-minute drive from downtown Kampala, are continuing to demonstrate what a dedicated group of people at a major university in an urban capital can do to improve lives. In addition to MakaPads, the institute has pioneered a range of innovative products, including granaries to reduce post-harvest losses of food products; a solar hot water heater, which reduces deforestation; a simple stove for cooking and purifying water; and interlocking clay building blocks that can be made on site to construct latrines and other structures.
Whether she's building roads for Kampala's metropolitan authority or thinking about the achievements of MakaPads, Mirembe Nassuuna is happy. She experiences in her own life what recent experiments have confirmed.
"When you make someone's life better," she says, "then your own life gets fulfilled. When you better their lives, you better yours."
David Njagi contributed reporting from Kampala. Coverage of African cities and their efforts to build resilience is supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.
