Hope for Africa Inc: Sustainable Sanitation Solutions

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Hope for Africa Inc: Sustainable Sanitation Solutions

Hope for Africa-Ghana provides MH education and promotes reusable pads and reusable menstrual cups.

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Jamestown (timber Market)
Accra

Website

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCjE26kcoIPRY_CvC_TeoO1Q

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Why We Exist

Do you remember when your period first started? Were you caught unaware at home or school? Did you have immediate access to a pad or tampon and continue your day as usual? Did friends rally around you in the bathroom at school? Imagine for a moment that you are a girl, in rural Ghana. Your period has just started. If you’re lucky, there is one bathroom available––maybe at school, definitely not at home. Your parents didn’t warn you this might happen and you have no idea what to do with your soaked clothing or how to make it stop.

The Cost of Being a Woman Disposable pads and tampons are widely available in Ghana and have been for years. But for the poorest of the poor, paying GHS 1.00 (Ghanaian cedi) for a single pad or tampon represents a significant drain on family resources. The average girl or woman could spend GHS 144 or more each year on disposable products. It is not uncommon for a family to have to choose between buying food and buying disposable sanitary supplies.

Cultural attitudes about women’s bodies have traditionally kept girls and women secluded and castigated for their monthly menstruation. As a result girls frequently do not learn how to care for their bodies and do so haphazardly. In many communities girls will not ask their parents to buy pads or tampons because they feel ashamed to drain the family’s resources. A girl whose family pays for disposable sanitary supplies may not be able to pay school fees.

Community Risk Factors In Ghana menstruating girls with few resources miss school during their cycle; one in ten girls in Africa misses school during menstruation. Many such girls end up dropping out of school permanently. As more and more girls have witnessed the benefits of education, however, dropping out of school is the last thing they want to do. With no money and their family teetering on the brink of hunger, girls who want to stay in school have few options. Aware of this predicament, men in the community keep supplies of disposable pads and tampons on hand, ready to trade these precious sanitation supplies for s*x. Many girls see this as their only option to manage their menstruation and stay in school.

Women head porters in Ghana are equally at risk to be taken advantage of. Kayayes are frequently homeless teenage or young adult women who earn a meager living carrying goods on their heads for shoppers at the community markets. There are no youth hostels and precious few orphanages. These women most frequently sleep under tables after the markets close each day. Some kayayes band together and take turns keeping watch through the night. But for all kayayes, r**e is a constant threat. A young woman attending one of our seminars on menstrual health and birth control found out the next day that she was already pregnant as a result of her exposure in the market place.

Menstrual Health Education Our Ghanaian partners provide health education seminars for girls, women, and School Health Education Program (SHEP) coordinators. They run a women’s health center and sewing facilities where girls and women eager to begin using reusable supplies can make their own liners and shields, or bags for a menstrual cup. Our education program helps girls track their cycle, teaches them how to keep their bodies safe and healthy, and provides hope for a brighter future.

How We Operate As the menstrual hygiene arm of Hope for Africa, Inc. (501c3), our health coordinators in Ghana provide menstrual health seminars for community and school groups. Health coordinators educate girls and women on healthy and sustainable sanitary practices, describe the benefits of reusables, and provide opportunities for girls and women to begin using reusables. With donations of partially finished washable shields and pre-cut flannel, we are able to reach hundreds of girls and women. Many will make their own flannel liners and cotton shields because of donations from people like you. We rely on donations of flannel, cotton, and money to make washable pads and cups available to the highest-risk populations. Your donations help girls stay in school, keep them from bartering their bodies for costly disposable supplies, and provide women with a sustainable solution for keeping their bodies safe and healthy.

Project 16,000 A generous grant from the Dutch government jumpstarted our work on sustainable hygiene. The grant stipulates that we reach 16,000 girls and women by December 2020. With volunteer support, we have already provided over 500 girls and women with liners and shields. We have provided machinery and other necessary supplies for the establishment of two sewing centers in the greater Accra area where girls and women attend menstrual health seminars and sew pre-cut flannel liners as well as finish sewing shields assembled by volunteers. With your help and donations, we can meet the requirements of the grant and provide menstrual health education well into the future.

*We are a branch of the registered 501c3 organization Hope for Africa, Inc.

*The Sustainable Sanitation Solution is an outgrowth of Kellogg Consulting’s work installing biodigester toilets in urban and rural poor Ghana.

*Not affiliated with Days for Girls International.