By Benjamin Mensah
Accra, Aug 18, GNA – World Vision Ghana (WVG), a Christian non-profit organisation, with focus on the well-being of children, has donated sanitary pads to selected educational institutions across the country, including the Accra Technical University (ATU).
The other beneficiary institutions are Effutu MA Basic School, Cape Cost; Damongo Girls’ Model School; Dawhenya Methodist B Basic School; some schools which have produced Child Sanitation Diplomats.
A Child Sanitation Diplomat is the overall winner of the School Sanitation Solutions (Triple S) Challenge, an annual writing and quiz competition organised by the WVG and partners, where pupils from Primary Five to Junior High Two identify, write and explain how sanitation problems affect their schools and communities, and suggest ways of tackling them.
Other schools that benefited from the donation were Silicon International School at Ofankor, Excellent Foundation Institute, Amasaman; Kaneshie West “1” Basic School and Barack Obama Basic School, located at Laterbiokorshie, all in the Greater Accra Region.
Receiving the donation on behalf of the ATU, Ms. Abigail Eshun, the Women’s Commissioner for Medical Laboratory Science Students Association, thanked the management of WVG for their kind gesture.
She said the donation would go a long way to help most underprivileged female students to effectively and efficiently manage their monthly periods.
Ms. Eshun explained that most female students, both in and outside campus could not afford sanitary pads regularly due to their cost.
She said: “Lots of female students who can’t afford the essentials have resorted to using unhygienic materials during their monthly periods, because they don’t have the means to procure the pads on monthly basis.
“We’re really struggling to procure this essential item for our use; this coupled with other basic life demands are pushing most ladies into all sorts of unholy acts,” Ms. Eshun said.
She therefore appealed to the government to ensure that sanitary pads were affordable and accessible to all families.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) after the presentation, Mr. Yaw Atta Arhin, the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Technical Coordinator of WVG, hinted that the donations to female students in the selected schools were to promote comfort, confidence and facilitate improved learning outcomes.
Apart from the schools which have produced Child Sanitation Diplomats, support to the rest of the schools including ATU were based on requests for support,” he noted.
According to him, high cost of sanitary products is making it inaccessible for many females to buy them.
Menstrual health, he said, was a vital aspect of women’s well-being.
“The lack of access to basic sanitary products and hygiene facilities forces most women to resort to unsanitary practices and unhygienic methods, putting their health at risk,” Mr. Arhin said.
He called on the government to introduce a comprehensive policy on menstrual health and hygiene to address the systemic barriers that perpetuate those challenges.
Mr. Arhin, appealed to the government to remove all taxes on sanitary pads be it imported or locally manufactured to make it cheaper and more accessible to every adolescent girl, and woman everywhere.
GNA