Smart Girls Uganda is a woman-owned social enterprise founded by Jamila Mayanja, dedicated to empowering young women and girls through vocational training and menstrual health solutions. The enterprise’s flagship innovation, the Ecojua Smart Bag,  is a solar-powered school bag made from recycled plastic waste that provides lighting for off-grid students and includes a reusable menstrual kit to combat period poverty. By addressing school absenteeism, energy access and waste reduction simultaneously, the Ecojua Smart Bag offers a holistic, eco-friendly solution. Operating through a circular economy model, Smart Girls Uganda also trains and employs young women from underserved communities, creating dignified livelihoods while promoting sustainability and educational equity. 

Smart Girls Uganda will leverage RAMA Impact’s financial and non-financial support to increase its revenue by 300%, distribute the Ecojua Smart Bag to 2,000 girls in off-grid and underprivileged areas to reduce school absenteeism, while creating 45 full-time and part-time jobs for women in underserved communities. The enterprise will repurpose approximately 300 kilograms of plastic waste and conduct up to 50 community workshops and awareness sessions focused on menstrual health education and stigma reduction, over a period of 12 months.