By Yussif Ibrahim
Obuasi (Ash), May 29, GNA – The Rotary Club of Obuasi in partnership with Self-Love Foundation, Girls Shall Grow and Gold City Mummies, has launched a pad bank as part of activities marking this year’s World Menstrual Hygiene Day.
The initiative is to make sanitary pads accessible to girls from deprived homes who could not afford them during menstruation.
In Ghana, sanitary pads are subject to a 20 per cent import tax and 12.5 per cent value-added tax.
This makes it expensive for girls from average Ghanaian homes to access it, thereby having negative impacts on their health, education, and well-being.
“The pad bank initiative is targeted at girls from poor homes who ordinarily can’t afford these pads,” Rotarian Delphine Gborglorvor of the Rotary Club of Obuasi stated at the launch of the initiative.
She said the Club realized the difficulties girls went through during menstruation and efforts by the local NGOs to supply sanitary pads and decided to bring all of them under one umbrella to establish the pad bank.
According to her, individuals and organisations could donate pads to the bank for distribution to deserving recipients who would be identified by the Girl Child Coordinators of the Ghana Education Service.
She appealed to other NGOs, individuals, and organizations to deposit sanitary pads to the bank to sustain the programme.
Ms. Louisa Amoah, the Executive Director of Girls Shall Grow, called on Government to intervene in making sanitary pads accessible to girls, especially those from deprived communities, saying that it was unacceptable to have girls skip school during menstruation.
“Government has a role to play in ensuring sanitary pads are accessible to girls. The price which ranges between Gh20 to Gh25 per pack is making it difficult for some girls to afford,” she reiterated.
Mr. George Alfred Koomson, the Obuasi Municipal Director of Education, lauded the four groups for teaming up to introduce the sanitary pad bank.
He was of the view that the initiative would help keep girls in school during the period of menstruation.
He said seeing young girls improvising with all kinds of unsafe materials during menstruation was worrying.
The Rotary Club of Obuasi and its partners supplied free sanitary pads to over 500 students who thronged the Obuasi Sec tech Senior high school auditorium during the launch.
GNA