It’s About Health & Dignity. Period.
As the saying goes; educate a girl, educate a nation. As such, for the girl child to stay in school so that the cycle of poverty can be broken, we provide educational materials and sanitary pads/napkins to less privileged girls in the local community. This is sustainable educational and menstrual health she can count on and with it, she can avoid infection, shame, exploitation, early marriage, and even trafficking.
Challenges
Having your menstrual cycle is embarrassing enough, but having it be a cultural taboo is even worse. Girls in impoverish communities in Nigeria face the cultural taboo and lack of access to safe menstrual health solutions.
These girls turn to unsanitary methods including rags, leaves, newspapers, and in some cases they become victims of sexual exploitation out of desperation for supplies.
What’s even worse is the girls who attend schools without access to any menstrual health solution, misses school days because they are ashamed, why some even drop out of school to focus on other menial jobs.
- This is Who We Help -
Taking Action
We educate girls about menstrual cycles and women’s health and provide the poorest communities quarterly with sanitary pads/napkins and most especially those attending schools.
Also, with our Girl Child Initiative: Invest in a Girl, Power the Future were we provide educational materials and host symposiums on the importance of education, health and human trafficking catastrophe.
As a result of these educational measures and safe menstrual health solutions to these girls, it has directly resulted in decreases in dropout rates for girls in school as well as, increases their contribution to their local community sustainability.
Long-term Impact
Long-term impact cannot be overemphasized. The Girl child remains in school, allowing her to have access to continuous education and sustainable solutions.
Consequently, this affects current and future generations of women and men, playing a pivotal role in breaking the cycle of poverty.
Most importantly, local communities are empowered to discuss menstrual cycles without seeing it as Taboo, and also find ways to bring about access to menstrual health and sanitation for themselves and others.