SANITARY PADS & REPRODUCTION CYCLES EMPOWERMENT FOR YOUNG GIRLS IN SCHOOLS
The main purpose of this project themed GIFT HER A PAD is to help provide teenage girls from poor family background sanitary pads for their monthly flow. There is a lack of access to sanitary pads affecting educational attendance of girls in public schools, which negatively impacts their confidence, well-being, and ability to succeed in school.
In Africa including Nigeria, 70℅ of girls in public schools are from poor homes and 50℅ of them are using pieces of cloth cut out from their old clothes as sanitary pads. They have to wash it after each use in order to reuse them which can be messy, unhygienic and infection prone.
At WCRLO we believe education is a priority, but not having access to menstrual hygiene is disrupting the education of more than half of African schoolgirls.
Supporting Girls’ Education
Our goal each quarter is to provide sanitary pads to girls in 10 public secondary schools in Nigeria so that they can feel empowered, clean, stain-free and confident to stay in school during their menstrual cycle. With access to safe hygienic products, they will be able to prioritize their education and focus on their future.
We also go from school to school educate secondary school girls about Menstrual Hygiene & Women Reproduction Cycles in order to curtail Teenage pregnancies among them which can affect their education or life, while Menstrual Hygiene is for them to maintain cleanliness and healthy at all times.
Empowering Girls Across Nigeria
As the saying goes, “educate a girl, educate a nation.” With strong educational foundations, cycles of poverty in poor communities can be broken.
Our one-to-one chat with some of the school girls:
“At 13-year-old, I dropped out of mixed school because one day in my class as I got up to write in the board, my classmates started laughing & I looked down to see the pieces of cloth soaked with menses blood lying at the front of the class, it was our male teacher that called my attention”
-Bisi
“I started using cloths that I cut out from my old cloth to keep the blood from staining my dresses, but they were not enough and blood would still stain my clothes.
My Aunt will always buying Always Sanitary pads for her daughter and she asked me to use pieces of cloth for my own flow”
-Ngozika
“I don’t go to school during my menstrual periods because Boys in my school laughs & make jest of any girl that they noticed twisting her legs when walking due to pieces of cloth placed between her legs to absorb the flows”
-Blessing
“My best friend in school got pregnant for a man that buys Sanitary pads for her every month”
-Yemisi
“Some girls in my school are following men because of Sanitary pads because you will not notice that you are in period”
-Onyinye
“I am 17yrs of old but I have not use sanitary pads since I started mensuration 5years ago because it is costly. I and my mother share the same towels for our periods”
-Iyabo
“The only person available to help wants sex in return before he gives me the money. I resorted to using toilet paper as makeshift pads, but when that proved unsustainable, I gave in to his sexual demands in return for cash for pads. I have to do it because I need pads for the month which resulted into pregnancy and abortion”
-Simi
We at Women for Civil Rights & Liberties Organization (WCRLO) are committed of providing free sanitary supplies to girls in public schools and educating them about menstruation, menstrual hygiene.& Reproduction Cycles from 2016 till date
GIFT HER A PAD is an Educational Empowerment of keeping every girl child in school, also to promote their confidence, Stain-free and infection-free.
Our focus is on public schools where we have majority of girls who are not affording conventional sanitary pads but alternatively using Rags, Handkerchief, Socks, And Toilet papers etc.
Providing sustainable menstrual health management to girls benefits them in countless ways, most significantly, in their physical health, their ability to continue their education, preventing dropping out of school, abortion, teenage pregnancy, human trafficking, stigimazation etc.
We are pleading to the public to support this program GIFT HER A PAD so we can continue to provide this essential items to as many under privileged girls as we can. Sanitary pads cost N900 which is $1.2 and most of these girls parents or families are not earning UpTo $1 a day.
Join us or donate in our goal to supply sanitary pads to 6000 Nigerian schoolgirls! Just $50 can provide sanitary pads for 6 months for 5 girls.
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