moses musaazi, an engineering professor at makerere university in kampala, has developed a safe and cheaplocally-made alternative -- makapads. >> they told me something i did not know -- that some girls who are too poor to afford sanitary pads missed going to school all the days they were menstruating. that means 3-5 days in a month they wouldn't go to school. progressively they would perform badly and then drop out of school before completing their education. >> moses musaazi and his colleagues experimented for three years to develop a model that worked. the material they use grows on the outskirts of kampala -- papyrus reeds. they're abundant and are easily processed. to make the makapads, workers cut the papyrus, peel off the green cover, and then take the white stems to the factory. the work is done by people who live next to the fields. the makapads project is aimed at creating jobs for the needy -- unemployed women and refugees from the democratic republic of the congo and central africa are given preference. just under 200 people now work in the factory. production takes 40 steps,