KNUST students educate adolescents on menstrual health and hygiene in deprived communities

Public health advocates have most times become worried over the number of girls who stay out of school through no fault of theirs, as they experience their menstrual cycle.

This, many times are due to the lack of knowledge the adolescent girls have about menstruation and some poor nature of facilities in various schools that prevent the girls from accessing them to change themselves during school hours.

Several studies have documented the impact of menstruation on the education of adolescent girls with challenges of menstrual hygiene management affecting girls’ school attendance.

It is estimated that one out of 10 girls in Ghana stay out of school during such natural cycle.

It is on this background that some eight students from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science (KNUST) who call themselves #TeamTaadi, is embarking on a project in some deprived communities in the Western Region of Ghana, dubbed “Obaasima Project”, to reduce menstrual poverty among girls.

This will be done by educating adolescents girls on menstrual hygiene and introducing to them how to use sanitary pads.

Obaasima is an Akan language which means, an absolute woman.

In their first project in the Western Region, pupils from two schools, namely Nana Baidoo Bonsoe and Methodist Basic Schools located at Poasi, a community in New Takoradi in the Sekondi Takoradi Metropolis were educated on how to stay hygienic when menstruating.

The #TeamTadi in partnership with Marie Stopes Ghana, an NGO which focuses on sexual and reproductive health, held a two-day training for the school pupils on menstrual hygiene, where some 20 pupils, ten from each school were selected to serve as Peer Educators to sustain the project in their respective schools.

The team also registered 100 pupils onto the National Health Insurance Scheme, so they could easily access health care whenever the need arises.

#TeamTaadi then distributed 250 pieces of reusable sanitary pads, which were made available by Orange Girl Foundation, 80 boxes of paper towels. 250 books (excercise books and menstrual hygine and reproductive health) and a number of pens to the pupils.

According to the students who form the #TeamTaadi, their first project which ended in January 2023 will also help in Ghana’s achievement of some United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.