New hope, self-confidence for menstruating schoolgirls
Flashing a faint smile, Veronica John sits attentively in her classroom as the teacher takes the class through the day’s lesson at Nkaiti Secondary School in Babati District, Manyara Region.
As she prepares to write her Form Four national examinations later this year, the 20-year-old has every reason to enjoy her studies. It was not always so in the past. A few years ago, Veronica was in shock when the unexpected happened to her. She recalls: “There I was, in one of the lower primary school classes, when I suddenly realised that blood was oozing into my underwear. My skirt got stained. I had to make sure I was the last to leave the classroom. I did not know what was happening to me. I simply wasn’t prepared for it.” “I was very embarrassed at the time, especially because the boys in my school called me names and mocked me, it was painful,” she recalls. “I dreaded the idea of walking back home because there was no way I could avoid the boys. I was both in shock and confused. What was I to tell my mother?” explains the soft spoken student.
Veronica cleaned up when she got home and decided she would take a five-day break from school. As she puts it, she just could not bear the embarrassment again. But, for about one year, Veronica and all other female students have put it all behind them. They no longer worry about the unexpected. “I know now what to do and where to go when my days arrive,” she explains with her flash smile. “I no longer have to skip class.” This change is thanks to the two-year Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) project, female students in Babati District are now aware of what to do when their periods come, whether it is at school or home.
This is a two-year project of SNV, a Netherlands-based non-profit international development organisation, in partnership with Friends Support Community Development (Fri-Sucode), a Babati-based NGO. The project covers 2014 and 2015 and seeks to “develop and demonstrate market-based solutions” that address the problem adolescent girls in schools and community face. The project is designed to improve the school attendance and performance of girls, in particular, and other students. It also seeks to raise the number of schoolgirls who get and use disposable sanitary pads and offers information on menstrual hygiene and developing a business model for school girls in rural areas.
The primary beneficiaries are 20,000 menstruating girls from eight districts countrywide--including Njombe, Mufindi, Babati, Karatu, Siha, Chato, Geita and Magu. Parents, youth groups, government institutions and local capacity builders also get to benefit .