Training women and girls on menstrual hygiene/pads production

Just recently, a non governmental organisation in collaboration with the United Nations embarked on training rural women and girls in Bauchi on menstrual hygiene and pads production as a form of cleanliness and empowerment. NAJIB SANI reports.

Every adult girl or woman experiences menstruation on a monthly basis. This is a vaginal bleeding that occurs every month and continues till they reach a stage in life known as menopause.

Therefore, many women and girls that reach puberty go through this moment; so need to take good care of themselves during the period by maintaining cleanliness and personal hygiene.

For some women and adolescent girls, menstruation comes with problems that cause pains and temporary sicknesses such as abdominal or pelvic pains, lower back pains, sore breasts and headache, just as it embarrasses others especially the very poor who cannot afford sanitary pads to sanitise themselves.

Coming to the rescue

Against this background, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Bauchi state known as Ikra Foundation for Women and Youth Development (IFWYD) with support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) organised trainings for selected girls and women in five local government areas of Bauchi state on reproductive health, menstrual hygiene and how to produce local re-usable sanitary pads.

About 320 girls and women were drawn from Ningi, Itas Gadau, Gamawa, Tafawa Balewa and Kirfi local government areas for the training. 200 were students while the remaining 120 were selected from communities.

Justification of the intervention

Founder of the foundation, Barrister Amina Garuba, during the opening of the training at Women Centre in Ningi local government area explained that the training was meant to educate the participants on how to cater for themselves during menstrual periods and to produce local sanitary pads. She pointed out that pads are expensive and many less privileged girls and women find it difficult to cater for themselves during their monthly menstrual periods. 

According to her, some girls resort to using unhygienic rags as a result of their inability to buy sanitary pads, hence the idea to educate the participants on menstrual hygiene as well as how to locally manufacture sanitary pads for use in menstruation time.

She noted that many adolescent girls especially those in rural areas do not know much about reproductive health, adding also that many poor parents do not provide sanitary pads to the girls and that makes them to shun schools to avoid embarrassment during menstruation.

Amina said the NGO sought support from the United Nations Population Fund to train the participants on reproductive health, menstrual hygiene and the production of sanitary pads so that they could fend for themselves during menstruation.

She further stated that the girls would be taught on sexual and gender-based violence and COVID 19 preventive measures.

“We discovered that menstrual hygiene is very important to women and it is a right. Many girls in our various communities see menstruation as something to be afraid or ashamed of. But menstruation is something that women should be proud of because when you menstruate, it means that you can procreate.

“However, since we discovered that it is a topic that is not discussed in the open, we thought it is important that we come and educate the girls so that they can take care of themselves.

“When you look at the issue of pads, they are expensive now and it makes many girls to miss schools. They cannot go to schools when they are in menstruation. So, we thought that we should teach them how to make re-usable pads, hand sanitisers and facemask.” 

“With their re-usable pads, they can take care of themselves hygienically. You can use it, wash and re-use it,” She said.

Amina said aside producing sanitary pads for their own use, the trainees could use it as an occupation and make more for sale.

“They are also trained on the production of facemasks and we gave them materials to use in the production of the pads and masks. Our idea is that they can produce them for their own use and sell to others. By so doing, they will get a little income,” she noted.

Warning against unwanted pregnancy

A facilitator at the training, Shamsiya Bello Isah, enlightened the girls to be extra careful in their adolescent stage to avoid jeopardising their lives.

She warned them that as soon as they reach puberty age, they are liable to be pregnant and give birth, saying they need to be cautious with men in order not to have unwanted pregnancies.

Shamsiya pointed out that early marriage for girls can also cause health problems such as Vesico Vaginal Fistula (VVF) which is a serious disability that can be experienced by women after child birth. 

VVF is defined as a hole that develops between the vagina and the bladder, resulting in uncontrollable leaking of urine through the vagina. The most common cause of vesico-vaginal fistula, according to experts, is obstructed labour, early marriage, poverty. 

“We put more emphasis on the menstrual hygiene because we are dealing with adolescents. We taught them production of pads as a way of empowering them. It will add value to their lives. We also taught them how to make disinfectants, facemasks and hand sanitisers”, says Shamsiya. 

Other resource persons at the workshop like Peace Yohanna and Precious Dare claimed that the girls did not have much knowledge of reproductive health before the arrival of the NGO, but that they have now changed the narrative.

“Most of them cannot afford to buy sanitary pads because they are expensive. Moreover, most of these children are not used to using pads. They practised same culture and tradition of using normal pieces of clothes.

“So we introduced these reusable pads because they are affordable. We would continue with this programme because we are making an impact,” they assured.

The facilitators also decried the rate of sexual harassment in the society and urged the girls not to be afraid or ashamed of reporting such to the authorities.

“We taught them the preventive measures as well as protective mechanisms and not to be afraid to speak out, even in the face of stigmatisation because by the time we are hiding these, we are not going anywhere.”

Local government authorities have hailed the NGO for the gesture saying it would impact positively on the lives of women in the areas.

Council chairmen laud programme

In Gamawa local government, for instance, its chairman, Babayo Ahmed Kasuwa represented by the head of administration of the council Adamu Hamza Ahmed urged the participants to share the knowledge with other girls and women that were not present at the training.

While at Bununu town, headquarter of Tafawa Balewa local government, the village head, Alhaji Salisu Mohammed Bununu represented by Sanusi Idris commended the NGO and UNFPA for the programme as it educated the participants on women’s rights.

From participants

Also responding, some of the participants in the five local governments admitted that with the coming of the NGO, they learnt how to take care of themselves during menstruation, adding that the skills they learnt on pads making would also empower them.

A participant, Hadiza Idris said, “Since we have been trained on making sanitary pads, facemasks, hands sanitiser, disinfectants and given raw materials for production, we are going to have occupations. Before this training, we had no occupations, but we would now be making some money through this business. We would no longer rely on parents or boyfriends for money to buy pads,” she said.

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