Menstrual hygiene is one of the sensitive topics and an area that has raised great concern, because of the lack of adequate provisions for girls in most rural areas in Africa. We have always taken the interest of our learners at heart and make efforts to make their learning experience a memorable one. This term, we had our Girls Leading Our World (GLOW) club members each create three pads as part of our Impact Girls programs. This was to make sure that none of our girls have to miss school due to lack of sanitary pads. Did you know that poorly managed menstrual health hygiene contributes to up to 4-5 missed days of school each month?

Aside from the creation of pads, we expanded our outreach to create a small bag for each student for privacy. Our girl students have a safe and secure place to put their sanitary pads in when hanging as well as storing afterwards. Aside from providing privacy, the bag enables the learners to hang their pads in direct sunlight without any shame or embarrassment.

The students had this to say about the project:

Thank you Impact Network for providing us with an opportunity to learn how to create our own pads and for adding the dry bags. The pads will help us in that we won’t have to miss school because of not having money to buy pads. The bag will be useful when drying because we have previously been drying sanitary wear in hidden places which have ended up returning moisture and gave our clothes a bad smell.

As we continue to fight and improve the learning conditions of our learners, we hope everyone could understand that;

Pads should not be a choice; it should be a right for girls because it’s not a taboo at all…
~Aryan (Umakant) ~

-Busiwa Namwila, Project Officer

Pads should not be a choice…