By Yussif Ibrahim
Morso (Ash), May 30, GNA – The Hunger Project-Ghana (THP-G), a Non-Governmental Organisation working with communities to end poverty, has distributed sanitary pads to schoolgirls at Morso in the Asante-Akim South Municipality.
The donation formed part of activities to mark this year’s World Menstrual Hygiene Day with the global theme, “Making Menstruation a Normal Fact of Life.”
The beneficiary girls embarked on a float in the Morso Township to raise awareness about menstrual hygiene and the need to make sanitary pad accessible to women during menstruation.
They later converged at the Presbyterian Church where various speakers took turns to address them on how to maintain good hygiene during that time if the month.
The speakers were drawn from the Ghana Health Service, Ghana Education Service, traditional leaders, and representatives of the THP-G.
Mr. Solomon Amoakwa, Project Officer, THP-G, said his organisation’s primary objective was to eliminate poverty particularly among women and girls in communities where they work.
He said anything that hindered the growth and developing of women was a challenge that must be tackled as a people in order not to leave them behind in our development efforts.
“That is why we at The Hunger Project Ghana are committed to addressing the challenges that women go through during menstruation to eliminate what we call menstrual poverty among women,” he observed.
He said menstruation was a natural cycle that women had to go through and that they should not accept the narrative that it made them unclean or less human.
They should be bold and go about their normal duties during menstruation and most especially desist from skipping school during that period.
Mr. Amoakwa implored authorities of schools to take steps to make the school environment girl-friendly by providing basic facilities where they could change their sanitary pads while in school.
Mrs. Rose Agyeiwaa Marfo, the Girl Child Coordinator at the Municipal Education Directorate, proposed the establishment of a pad bank in the Municipality to provide needy girls with pads monthly to ensure their punctuality in school.
She said deliberate efforts could be made to target vulnerable girls in various schools and appealed to all relevant stakeholders to help mobilise sanitary pads to for that purpose.
Mr. Reuben Osei Antwi, the Municipal Director of Health Services, applauded THP-G for the initiative which he said would help change the perception that menstruation was a taboo.
He urged parents not to shirk their responsibility of providing sanitary pads for their daughters, stressing the need to protect them from the dangers of seeking help elsewhere.
He said NGOs could not provide pads throughout the year and called on family members to lookout for their teenage and adolescent girls to prevent unwarranted pregnancies.
GNA