10,000 Girls to receive free sanitary towels
Ten thousand girls in deprived communities in the Ashanti and Northern regions are to be given sanitary towels free of charge in the next six months.
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The distribution of the sanitary pads, which is dubbed ‘Always Keeping Girls in School Programme,’ is aimed at reducing the high rate of menstruation-related absenteeism among girls, providing access to good personal hygiene products and educating the girls on reproductive health.
At the launch of the project at Dagomba in the Sekyere Afram Plains District, the Founder of EPF Educational Empowerment Initiative, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Ms Winnifred Selby, said research had shown that girls missed at least five days of school every month due to their menstruation.
She said most of the schools did not have toilet facilities that the girls could use to change their sanitary towels, and many of them also did not have hygienic sanitary products to use to protect themselves.
As a result, she said many girls rather chose to stay at home until they had finished menstruation to avoid the embarrassment of soiling themselves in school.
This, she said, affected their education and made some of them even drop out of school.
Ms Selby said the project was, therefore, to empower the girls to remain in school and take their education seriously.
According to her, the project would run for six months, after which the partners would assess its success before it is scaled up to cover more girls.
She said the project selected Drobonso/Dagomba as one of the pilot communities due to the level of deprivation there.
The project is a partnership among the EPF Educational Empowerment Initiative, the World Children Award, a US based NGO and P&G, manufacturers of Always Sanitary Pads.
Under the project, P&G will supply the sanitary pads which will be distributed to the beneficiary pupils and students in the various schools.
The beneficiaries would be under the supervision of coordinators (who are female teachers). They will sign attendance books to check how regularly they attend school.
Under the project, a two-seater biofil toilet facility will be constructed for the school to provide the girls with a better environment where they could change themselves during their menstrual period.
The girls were also taught how to use the pads and dispose of them properly.
