Over Four Hundred (400) teenage girls in the Nanton district of the Northern Region were left with glooming faces and excitement yesterday Sunday when they received sanitary pads from the Girls to Women Foundation. The items were distributed to these underprivileged girls in commemoration of this year’s Mensural Hygiene Day to enhance their personal hygiene during mensuration.
The Mensural Hygiene Day is observed every year on May 28 to raise awareness on good mensural hygiene management and highlight on challenges associated to access of mensural products.
The teenagers were selected students from various basic schools including the Nanton Girls Model Junior High School, Nanton JHS “A” and “B”, Zieng primary and JHS and Kpono JHS.
Each student received two packs of sanitary pads from the women-led nongovernmental organization operating in the northern and Upper West regions.
Ibrahim Abiba Faiza, a pupil of Nanton JHS, expressed gratitude for the intervention of the NGO saying, “it will be beneficial to me because my pad has finished and I didn’t know what to do in my next mensuration but now if my mensuration time is due, I will know how to manage myself thanks to Girls to Women Foundation”.
Another beneficiary, Hamza Asana from the Zieng JHS, noted she would no longer have to missed her class when she is mensurating.
The school children were also sensitized on mensural and personal hygiene and urged to abstain from sexual intercourse to avoid teenage pregnancy.
The Headmistress of Nanton Girls Model JHS, Rahana Hussein, for her part commended the Girls to Women Foundation for holding the Mensural Hygiene Day celebration in the district to raise awareness among the people.
“I face a lot of problems with this mensural issue, sometimes, I give money out for them to buy sanitary pads or I buy myself to keep for them. Some of them don’t even come to school with chop money, not to talk of affording money to buy sanitary pad, so I have been doing it with my pocket money or I sometimes consult the GES Director for support” she narrated.
For her part, the Founder and Executive Director of Girls to Women Foundation, Hajia Mariam Iddrisu, in an exclusive interview said mensuration is a normal biological process every female passes through in life and urged the public to stop stigmatizing individuals observing their period.
She said mensuration is considered as a gift from God and as such it is a normal function in every woman or an adolescent girl’s life but noted however that it is surprising some persons in developing countries like Ghana still stigmatizes mensuration.
Hajia Mariama highlighted one of the objectives for annual Mensural Hygiene Day celebration is to demystify myths around mensuration and to educate the population to appreciate that mensuration is natural phenomenon.
“…For all you know, due to mensuration or period girls abstain from school or dropout of school; so, this day is for us NGOs, individuals including the media [social media or traditional media] to ensure this education goes down well with the people” she stressed.
Hajia Mariam emphasized her outfit is determined to ending period poverty but intimated this requires the collectively efforts of individuals and organizations including the media.
