Creating Comics to Promote Positive Sexual and Reproductive Health for Adolescents in Uganda

Bridget: I would say Girl Potential Care Centre started as a simple organization that supports young people in communities to easily access sexual and reproductive health information and services through advocacy and creating awareness. This was born because I was raised by a single dad, who also happens to be a wheelchair user and [is living with] HIV/AIDS. My family and I used to face a lot of  stigmatization and discrimination because of those two specific conditions that my father had. So my father was forced to give me [and my siblings] away to church members or family members who were willing to take us, so that we can easily access education, have a good family setup, and access food in what he thought was a peaceful way of us being nurtured. So, for my case, I ended up in church at a relative’s place, which is a Seventh Day Adventist church setting.

And in that setting, as young people, especially below 13 or below 18, we were not allowed to talk about sex or even have boyfriends, or even bring it up or ask questions about it. If you did, you were either labeled as a spoiled child or an immoral child according to the Bible. Or you’d be punished in different ways. … So it was easier for me to access such information or have such conversations with my peers at school. 

Most of my peers then also had literally [the same] or almost the same setup in their families, so it was hard to access information. … In that period of time, I had an opportunity to be a leader, being a minister of information and library [at my school]. And this was an opportunity for me to access materials or resources that would enhance my knowledge in regards to sex education. I chose to use comics and cartoons.

After high school, of course, I went to pursue my university or higher education, and I wanted to be an architect, which I am right now. Being at university was a bit exciting. I was super excited that I could have a boyfriend. I could talk about sex education … but then I realized that I was not that well exposed to information. So it was easy for me to be misled or to make mistakes in regards to sex education, in regards to sexual and reproductive health. And that’s how I started [what was first known as the] Brita Kigambo Foundation, which was not only meant to support young women who are unable to access education opportunities [so they can] get various support from each other but rather it was [also] like a community where young people, especially girls, would sit and talk about our various issues.

[During the] COVID lockdown … we had to find another way [to gather because local leaders restricted convenings]. We presented a training of menstrual health and hygiene management. The campaign was called Donate a Pad, where we would work with our parents and all other well wishers, to provide us with funds to buy training materials to train girls. That one was an easy way for us to convene and also have a moment to share ideas with each other … not only [would we] have girl-talks but rather we would [also] be training young people how to make reusable pads, which … [was considered an] essential need for every girl every month. 

… the local government allowed us to do that and they requested us to register the organization as a community-based organization (CBO) … and we would be given a pass-out letter that would allow us to move from community to community. 

Through community to community, we worked with the local chairpersons and Village Health Teams (VHTs). We would work with either a church or a school because they have big compounds, and we’d be able to maintain social distancing but still carry out the trainings. Those were the first community outreach programs that we carried out as a CBO and [we were known as] Girl Power Connect. 

We were looking to not only solve reproductive health solutions but also advocate for young people to be able to negotiate for safe sex and also have a hand in making reusable pads that they can use themselves or sell to make money.

Community Impact of Girl Potential Care Centre

Bridget: I believe the ways that we have helped our community, especially young people, is not only to boost their self-esteem but also to increase access to basic information about sexual and reproductive health in order to continue our work. … Most of the women in the Rwenzori region [in Uganda] are either married off young, or if not married off young, they are engaged in sexual activities at an early age out of curiosity but also [sometimes] out of necessity. …

At Girl Potential Care Centre, we did not demonize the fact that sex activities are started young, but we also showed young people new ways of opting for second chances to pursue their dreams. … 

Our programs, especially the Donate a Pad campaign, did not only train young people on how to get soft skills … [like] managing their own small-income businesses, learning how to negotiate for safe sex, or even stand up for their rights [and] speak up, especially young people who were victims of domestic violence.

Creating Comics to Reach Young People with SRH Information

The Girl Potential Care Centre is known for creating comics, Youth Scroll Lock, that depict scenes of everyday life for young people in Uganda to make SRH information more accessible to young people. The comics use a conversational tone and include a range of characters including young people, community leaders, teachers, parents, and healthcare professionals.

Bridget: There was a call that we saw on Facebook that was looking for digital innovation in [the COVID-19] lockdown that would still continue the work of human rights awareness. It was a program that was implemented by Digital Human Rights Lab and Policy in 2021.

We applied with our idea of sharing sexual and reproductive health and rights information through comics, which will enable young people to easily access information. Being one of the four winners for that year, we received an award of 10 million Uganda shillings (about US$2,800) that helped us to do baseline surveys, launch the online digital magazine, and also publish our first edition on gender and rights for the public. And ever since 2021, we’ve always published comics and done consultancy work for various organizations. 

So comics and graphics, for us as an organization, summarized the kind of messages that we want to put out there in regards to sexual and reproductive health and rights.  And comics—comic series or episode stories—would not only captivate the minds of young people to keep following the stories to see what happened to their various characters that they relate to, but [also] make it fun.

Behind the Scenes of Youth Scroll: Developing Comics that Resonate with Young People

Bridget: [For] the process of creating the Youth Scroll Lock episodes, we work with over eight young people…we have a team of script writers, sketching team, colorist, and a graphic designer, plus one web designer as well or one web editor. The story comes from the team. We decide which topic we are advocating for this month. And from that topic, we will decide which characters we will have, how many pages the magazine should have, which organizations should we approach to fund the publication of this specific magazine. As usual the team leader, which is me, takes up the role of resource mobilization to make sure that our publications are already on site and shared.

The rest of the team … designs the storyboards. That’s where we come together at once and edit everything to decide on how the story will flow. After that, it is shared to a graphic designer who does graphic layouts. We have a PDF that we publish on our site and if we have any specific partner for that episode, we share the drafts with them to add in their own inputs or give their feedback. 

What works well in our programming and creation … is the fact that we involve various young people, especially in creating the specific content, looking at their specific or different skills that they bring to the team.

Bridget: [One] question that we ask is how can we ensure that the information is both accurate and engaging to our various audiences. Of course, with content development and how expensive it is, we cannot create tailored episodes for [different] age brackets, so we make sure that our content is not only factual but also can be easily read by anyone regardless of their age bracket. 

 We [also] look at how we can make our content more interactive, relatable, and fun, especially for young people since they are our primary audiences … especially in changing their mindset in regards to taking their sexual and reproductive health choices seriously. 

We also ask questions around what platforms and formats can be more effective to reach different audiences. If we are looking to share specific information to schools, we would work with school leaders to enable us to have outreach programs, because in Uganda students are not allowed to have phones [in schools]. So they would either access the Youth Scroll Lock [comics] through an outreach program that we carry out to read the specific episode. Or they would be given a period of time, probably on Fridays where … clubs are able to disseminate the information that we produce. 

With the menstrual health and hygiene management content that we create, we also look at the cultural and society sensitivities. For instance, in the Rwenzori region, menstrual health and anything that has to do with female reproductive health has various sentiments that are attached to it. Menstrual health is seen as an unclean or a curse, an experience that should not be exposed to the outside world. [We think about] how we can design stories and episodes that not only break the barriers of harsh and harmful cultural experiences but also bring in [culturally relevant] characters. [In] one of the episodes [for example] … we not only brought in the health workers but also traditional healers [in the storyline].  … [We shed light on] how culture and advanced medicine can affect the reproductive health of a woman.

Bridget: For community impact, one of the specific reasons why we carry out our awareness and advocacy programs, we look at what gaps in menstrual health education are within our communities that we would like to fill and how best can we collaborate with local schools and organizations to address these gaps. 

And we look at what resources and support do the teachers need effectively to teach menstrual health and hygiene programs. And this is done hand in hand with specific school leaders and parents, parent-teacher associations, to enable us either to fund or support our dissemination of menstrual health and hygiene management awareness programs in their respective spaces. 

One of the ways the Girl Potential Care Centre team prioritizes programming activities and ensures that we listen to the needs of our community is, first of all, we carry out focus group discussions that enable us to carry out regular surveys with different segments of young people in the community. … We also attend district focus meetings and quarterly focus meetings where we share this specific information and call out to stakeholders to support them in advocating or creating advocacy messages to tackle these specific issues. We keep track of trends in sexual and reproductive health and rights topics that are gaining attention and require more focus based on our community feedback. We also look at the national health trends that are happening within other communities. 

One of the things that has enabled us to maintain our programs is stakeholder collaborations and partnerships. … We work closely with schools, local health organizations, and community leaders to align our programming with actual community needs.