PROMOTING MENSTRUAL HEALTH IS EVERY ONE’S RESPONSIBILITY

Menstruation costed my two sisters education and almost mine-- Let us break the silence and save millions of girls’ education in Africa and beyond.

My name is Biira Margret from kasese district, western Uganda and am 36 years old. .Am a trainer and part of a campaign to raise awareness about menstrual health. I grew up in a humble back ground with my grandmother and other three sisters and one brother. My grandmother could not afford two meals a day. We could go to school every day on an empty stomach and during lunch time we could go in other people’s pawpaw plantation to get something to eat and it was not easy because all the pupils could go there every day. By the time i started my menstrual life, I was at school in class feeling very hungry waiting to hear the lunch bell. Immediately the bell rang,I stood up quickly to go and meet my friends outside and be the first in the paw paw plantation in order to get what to eat and my uniform was wet and stained with blood. I heard boys laughing and I turned to them to see what was going on but they continued laughing not knowing that I was the cause of their laughing.I had no idea what was happening.A fellow girl, immediately noticed and quickly came to my aid withasweater to tie around my waist and she told me “you have visited your aunt” which words are used to mean that you are on menstruation because in our culture we are not allowed to say it directly. I was horrified, ashamed and embarrassed in front of my fellow classmates, I asked her what to do, she told me that for her she is using rags or leaves to hold blood. When we reached outside, the boys had spread the news to other boys and they were coming in pairs to look at me. My friends escorted me to a distance, picked the leaves and used them. The following day I told my grand mother that am sick and I will not go to school and later told her that if she does not change me from that school, am stopping schooling. I changed school and made sure that during my menses I stay home because had only one knicker and could wash it when it was more than stained and then put arag to hold blood without a knicker. However life was not straight, I completed primary seven but because of lack of school fees I joined secondary school in second term. I loved school but had the challenge of school fees, later found myself studying from four schools because after accumulating school fees debts , I would change school not until in senior three third term, I got a boy friend who catered for my needs and paid my school fees up to diploma level and I got married to him. After diploma, I got a small job and I used my little+ savingsto study a bachelors degree but my plan is to attain all qualifications that is masters, PHDS and even post graduate diplomas. I know am not able to achieve these plans but my God who has made me to reach where jam today, will give me away out.

My elder sister dropped out of school in primary five. She was used to play with boys at school but during her periods she could shy away from them and sat one sided on the desk fearing to stain her uniform. She also used rags from old torn dresses which she picked from the compound. Later the boys discovered that when she does not do not play with them and sit one sided in class she is on menstruation. One day, they saw her and then brought a mirror without her notice and put it under the desk. They could come one by one to look in the mirror and see how the blood was coming. She could see the boys laughing in the class until one of the girls realized. She felt embarrassed and because of shame and fear, she left school

Also my small sister dropped out of school because of menstruation..Her male class teacher called her forward to solve a mathematics number on the black board. She stood up but unfortunately when she she had stained her dress and the boys laughed and the teacher told her to go and see the senior woman teacher who also told her to go home with out much explanation and that marked her end of education.

When I see these two sisters of mine suffering in poverty, I feel touched and sorry for them thinking that if they had continued with education, they would be in better situation than they are in now. Because of this I have taken the pledge to stand up for every girl that struggles with hermenstrual cycle.I will be her voice in the wilderness.I will educate her about menstruation, empower her andhelp her understand her body.

Why break the silence ?

Menstruation is a poorly understood and often a neglected issue affecting millions of girls in Africa and beyond. Menstrual hygiene is girls’ rights issue and neglected driver of poor reproductive health and gender inequality. Menstruation is an integral and normal part of human life, indeed of human existence. Menstrual hygiene is fundamental to the dignity and wellbeing of women and girls and an important part of the basic hygiene, sanitation and reproductive health services to which every woman and girl has a right. Most of these women and girls will menstruate each month for between two and seven days. Unable to afford proper menstrual products, many women and schoolgirls have no choice but to rely on crude, improvised materials to absorb their menstrual flow. Girls’ options range from using rags and scraps of old clothes, to wads of toilet paper or newspaper – materials which are neither effective nor comfortable. Faced with frequent, embarrassing leaks and a susceptibility to recurrent infections, this situation reduces most girls’ experiences of menstruation to a monthly dose of discomfort and shame. The absence of clean water for washing, private changing rooms and sanitary materials in schools has aggravated the problem. In the rural Uganda as whole, menstruation is a taboo induced with stigma not permitting discussion or even information seeking because of the shame and superstitutions associated with this monthly biological occurrence, the women are impacted by poor menstrual hygiene.

The subject of menstruation, however, is too often taboo, and has many negative cultural attitudes associated with it, including the idea that menstruating women and girls are ‘contaminated’, ‘dirty’ and ‘impure’. Women and girls in rural settings and in particular girls in schools suffer most from stigma and lack of services and facilities to help them cope with the physical and psychological pains they undergo during their menstrual periods. Some of the problems they face are: inadequate preparations for young girls not yet experiencing menstrual hygiene, lack of or inadequate water to clean and wash the body, lack of materials for managing menstrual hygiene, no private space and wash rooms and inappropriate facilities for disposal of materials for those who have disposable pads. In spite of these issues, menstrual hygiene has been routinely ignored by professionals in the water, health and education sectors.

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The reality of taboos and socio – cultural restrictions surrounding menstrual practices prevents adolescent girls from accessing vital and accurate information and facts on menstrual hygiene. It’s imperative for women and girls to have access to the necessary knowledge, facilities and cultural environment that will allow them to manage menstruation hygienically and with their dignity intact. .Although menstrual hygiene is an issue that every girl has to deal with in their lives, there is lack of information on the process of menstruation and proper requirements for managing menstruation. The taboos surrounding this issue in the society prevents women and girls from articulating their needs and problems of menstrual hygiene management have been ignored or misunderstood. Good Menstrual hygiene is crucial for health, education and dignity of women and girls. This is an important sanitation issue which has long been in the closet and there is an urgent need to openly discuss these. Sanitation and hygiene are key issues for women, consistent with their need for privacy and self respect. Menstruation has a more pronounced effect on the quality and enjoyment of education than other aspects of poverty. It involves a learning component as well as elements affected by the school environment and infrastructure. These include access to menstrual hygiene practices, latrines , places to change, safe water and sanitation and good hygiene practices like hand washing with soap. With out these, the school environment is unhealthy, gender discriminatory and inadequate. Mensrual hygiene management is a multi faceted issue and the evidence compels us to consider that there is a pressing need to address it in a holistic manner engaging not only the the women and girls but also the environment that surrounds them, the culture and society as a whole. Hence there is a profound need for a paradigm in the shift towards a systematic and focused interventions which without doubt, requires various service providers (government and nongovernmental organizations) to seriously consider a coherent and convergent action plan dealing with this much evaded issue.

Healthy girls 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. Article 25 of the international declaration of human rights states that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and his family including food, clothing, medical care and necessary social services, motherhood and child hood are entitled to a special care and assistance. This shows the importance of the issue.

we successfully reached over 10,00 rural marginalized poor girls with education about menstrual and reproductive health and trained 400 girls to make local reusable sanitary pads and constructed for them wash and change rooms where they can comfortably wash and change in privacy and with dignity which has helped them to stay in school all month long. myths and misconceptions around menstruation and lack of access to sanitary products disempowers girls, and has an insidious impact on their ability to engage in education and make good decisions about their reproductive health. Girls need to have the facts about menstruation and puberty and understanding of their rights as the foundation for positive health choices through and beyond adolescence. We are teaching girls in primary schools and women about menstruation and we are breaking all myths and misconceptions surrounding menstruation like “ if you are on menstruation and use the latrine and blood drops inside the latrine, you will not produce, or if some one sees your sanitary pad hanged outside, it is a taboo for a man to know that you are on menstruation, when you feel pain during menstruation, you are not supposed to interrupt it by taking drugs, the pain will disappear when you become pregnant etc.

How menstruation has been neglected

There is lack of involvement in decision-making. Women and girls are often excluded from decision making and management in development and emergency relief programmes. At the household level,

they generally have little control over whether they have access to a private latrine or money to spend on sanitary materials. Even when gender inequalities are addressed, deeply embedded power relations and cultural taboos persist; most people, and men in particular, find menstrual hygiene a difficult subject to talk about. As a

result of these issues, WASH interventions often fail to address the needs of women and girls.

Lack of information and awareness. Young girls often grow up with limited knowledge of menstruation because their mothers and other women shy away from discussing the issues with them. Adultwomen may themselves not be aware of the biological facts or good hygienic practices, instead passing on cultural taboos and restrictions to be observed. Men and boys typically know even less, but it is important for them to understand menstrual hygiene so

they can support their wives, daughters, mothers, students, employees and peers. In the development sector, there

is a lack of systematic studies analyzing the impact of menstrual hygiene and resources for sharing best practice. This resource aims to address the latter.

Lack of access to products and facilities. Women and girls often find menstrual hygiene difficult due to a lack of access to appropriate sanitary protection products or facilities (eg a private space with a safe disposal method for used cloths or pads and a water supply for washing hands and sanitary materials).

Lack of social support. Taboos surrounding menstruation exclude women and girls from many aspects of social and cultural life as well as menstrual hygiene services. Such taboos include not being able to touch animals, water points, or food that others will eat, and exclusion from religious rituals, the family home and sanitation facilities. As a result, women and girls are often denied access to water and sanitation when they need it most.

Impact on education. Many schools do not support adolescent girls or female teachers in managing menstrual hygiene with dignity. Inadequate water and sanitation facilities make managing menstruation very difficult, and poor sanitary protection materials can result in bloodstained clothes causing stress and embarrassment. Teachers (and male members of staff in particular) can be unaware of girls’ needs, in some cases refusing to let them

visit the latrine. As a result, girls have been reported to miss school during their menstrual periods or even

drop out completely. With studies2 linking child survival

To manage menstruation hygienically, it is essential that women and girls have access to water and sanitation. They

need somewhere private to change sanitary cloths or pads; clean water for washing their hands and used cloths; and

facilities for safely disposing of used materials or a place to dry them if reusable. There is also a need for both men

and women to have a greater awareness of menstrual hygiene. Currently, cultural practices and taboos around

menstruation impact negatively on the lives of ).

Menstrual hygiene has been largely neglected by the water,sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector and others focusing

on sexual and reproductive health, and education. As a result, millions of women and girls continue to be denied

their rights to WASH, health, education, dignity and gender equity. If the situation does not change, it may not be

possible for development programmes to achieve their goals.

Marginalised women and girls, such as those who arehomeless or living with illnesses like HIV, face multiple

layers of exclusion that affect their daily lives. Homeless women and girls are often unable to obtain hygienic

sanitary materials or access water and somewhere to bathe. As a result, they cannot manage menstruation

with privacy, sometimes resorting to washing and using sanitary cloths taken from refuse tips3. Those with disabilities face additional accessibility barriers to accessing WASH facilities due to limited consideration of their needs in the design process. Carers of people with disabilities or HIV/AIDS do not always have the appropriate knowledge to provide menstrual hygiene support.

Speak loudly. Menstruation matters.

WHAT CAN NOT BE TALKED ABOUT ---WILL NOTCHANGE.

How to Get Involved

BY PROVIDNG SANITARY PADS.