The Bono Regional Girl-Child Coordinator at the Regional Directorate of Education, Ms Josephine Yalley has announced her office’s preparedness to establish a ‘sanitary bank’ to support less-privileged school girls.
She said school girls’ accessibility to sanitary pads during menstruation was a need and not a want, hence such an initiative would help eradicate the challenges most of them encounter when their time is due.
The initiative would be launched in October this year as part of activities to celebrate the International Day of The Girl-Child.
Ms Yalley said this at the ‘Menstrual Hygiene Day‘ celebration organised by the Girls Education Unit of the Sunyani Municipal Education Directorate, in collaboration with the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG) and Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED), at Abesim near Sunyani.
The event, which had the slogan: ‘Menstruation is not a Problem, Poor Menstrual Hygiene Is‘ brought together hundreds of school girls and teachers from basic schools within the Sunyani Municipality with each girl receiving a packet of sanitary pads.
Research had proven that girls who did not have access to sanitary pads during their menstrual period sometimes fell sick or dropped out of school among many challenges encountered, she said.
A Midwife and Project Coordinator of PPAG Sunyani, Ms Esther Boateng Awuah told the girls that having menstruation was for a purpose, hence they should not be worried whenever they experienced that period in their lives.
She appealed to the traditional authorities to reintroduce ‘Bragoro’ (puberty rites) to help shape and mold young girls to be more responsible.
Ms Anthonia Etsuah, the Bono Regional Programmes Coordinator, CAMFED, urged the girls to take menstrual hygiene seriously and be more responsible in their youthful days to become dependable adults in the future.
