Restoring Dignity, One Pad at a Time🙌
That’s why menstrual hygiene matters ✅🙌💕 Menstruation is a natural process in women’s life but due to illiteracy, ignorance about religious teachings, poverty, socio-cultural trends, and negligence regarding psychological health and poor health facilities, the matter is not as properly dealt with as it ought to be. Expensive sanitary materials, unavailability
of soap and sufficient water, inexistence of toilets and incinerate Proper menstrual hygiene management is one of the most important and basic aspects of feminine health that is unfortunately neglected not just in developing countries but worldwide. Around fifty one percent of the total population of Kenya is comprised of Women. Most of these women reside in poor or village areas of Kenya, where no health facilities are available. In schools, there is usually a lack of physiological education. This is often attributed to predominantly male science teachers feeling uncomfortable about teaching such a subject, especially if they have not received formal training in how to do so. At home, advice (traditionally given by aunts and grandmothers) is often insufficient. Increasing girl’s completion of education cycles is a critical component of efforts to build their wider empowerment and in particular for ensuring that they are more able to be involved in decision making over all aspects of their lives including over their reproductive and sexual health rights. Additionally, inaccessibility of menstrual products compromises the effective uptake of family planning services. This is occasioned by the fact that girls who cannot afford the disposable sanitary towels more often are more at risk of manipulation by men who promise to provide them with the money to buy the pads. Eventually they are forced to have sexual relationship which ultimately leads to unwanted pregnancies and further risks of maternal and child health related problems as they are normally not prepared to take care of children at these early ages. The main problems faced by women and girls are:
• The expense of commercial sanitary pads;
• absenteeism where girls stay at home rather than attending school when menstruating;
• unhygienic ways to dry menstrual materials;
• inadequate waste disposal facilities;
• lack of privacy for changing menstrual materials;
• leakage from poor-quality protection materials;
• the lack of resources for washing such as soap;
• limited education about the facts of menstruation;
• limited access to counselling and guidance;
• fear caused by cultural myths;
• embarrassment and low self esteem;
• and the unsupportive attitudes of some men. The main objectives of the programme are:
• to improve school attendance among girls between the ages of 10 and 15 years in primary schools;
• to increase access to 10,000 vulnerable adolescent girls with sanitary towels and comprehensive menstrual hygiene management knowledge and risk awareness of HIV&AIDS among in-school and out of school girls between the ages 10 to 15 years;
• to increase the self-esteem of needy girls between ages 10 to 15 years;
• to enhance sustainable economic status for the young women between 18-34 years;
3. Importance of the issue:
Healthy girl child and women are the fundamentals of a healthy society. Proper menstrual hygiene management is one of the most important and basic aspects of feminine health that is unfortunately neglected not just in developing countries but worldwide. Fikia dada(Reach a girl) movement will be able to create awareness to girls and women on how to make homemade sanitary towels at an affordable and cheaper cost, and also address the problems that women and girls face.
