by Over 400 school and community girls have received counselling on menstrual health and provided sanitary pads by Rare Elite Foundation.
The Pad-a-girl project took place in six secondary schools, and four communities in Bekwarra Local Government Area, Cross River State.
The Founder of the NGO, Mrs. Ukeh Omang, while distributing the sanitary pads said the focus of the initiative is to get the girls, especially in the rural areas, sensitised on menstrual health and hygiene to mitigate the incidence of them dropping out of school and to also help prevent infection due to unhealthy or unhygienic menstrual lifestyle.
The sanitary pads were distributed to female secondary students in Comprehensive Secondary School Gakem, Ukpah Community Secondary School Ukpah, St. Joseph Secondary School Itekpa, Constant International School Gakem, Community Secondary School, Nyanya, Community Secondary School Afrike, Ugboro Secondary School Ugboro respectively in Bekwarra LGA.
“This project became imperative, aimed at ending period poverty and promoting shared prosperity of health rights toward improved girl-child education at the grass-root levels,” she said.
She empathized with the girls, some of whom may not be able to afford the sanitary pads on their own and may have to miss coming to school throughout their menstruation periods by offering to support them always so they never get to use any kind of cloth during thier period.
The founder explained that the government’s policy was needed to promote girl-child menstrual hygiene and keep them in school.
“In rural areas, girls do not have basic access to sanitary products. It is safe to say that the majority of the girls in rural areas in the country cannot afford safe and hygienic sanitary pads for proper menstrual hygiene management.
“One of the major issues with period hygiene is that sanitary pads are not only expensive; especially with the current economic state of the country, but also cannot be reused.
“It will also be of great help if the government gave free sanitary pads to teenage girls in secondary schools,” she said.
Ukeh also called for the sensitization of adolescent girl-child on menstrual health management to prevent environmental hazards associated with the indiscriminate disposition of used sanitary pads.
According to Ukeh, her foundation decided to distribute sanitary pads because they discovered that young girls in the community prefer to use clothes instead of disposable pads due to financial reasons which are not clean.
“We decided to educate young girls on their hygiene. We realize that menstruation stops some of them from going to school which shouldn’t be so.
“We need to demystify and make our young girls understand that menstruation is just a free flow of blood and nothing more.
“For girls to be able to become what they want to become, they must go to school so we have given them sanitary pads that can help prevent complications arising from improper menstrual hygiene.
She noted that other LGAs in the state will also benefit from the campaign as it is not only peculiar to Bekwarra LGA.
The founder also appealed to well-meaning Nigerians, the government, and International organizations to support the foundation to distribute more sanitary pads to other parts of the country and also training women to be financially independent.
Also speaking, the pad-a-girl Project Assistant, Inah Adie said, he hoped that in the next few years, the girls would have figured out that menstruation is not something to overlook and maintain proper menstrual hygiene.
“We also want them to know that menstruation is not something to be ashamed of or stay away from school because of,” he said.
One of the beneficiaries, Mary, mentioned that she was excited to be a part of the girls who benefitted from the exercise.
“In my community, many of the girls don’t use sanitary pads because it is expensive so they use clothes but with this, we will be able to use pads for a little while, also the foundation has promised to keep helping us with pads so we will not go back to using cloths “she said.
Other communities that benefited from distribution are the Akpapka community, Ilah community, Ichiakpo community, and Gakem community.
