Ms Josephine Yalley, the Bono Regional Girl-Child Coordinator at the Regional Directorate of Education, has announced her office’s preparedness to establish a ‘sanitary bank’ to support less-privileged school girls.
She said school girls’ accessibility to sanitary pad during menstruation was a need and not a want, hence such an initiative would help eradicate the challenges most of them encountered when their time was due.
The initiative would be launched in October this year as part of activities to celebrate the International Day of The Girl-Child.
Ms Yalley said this at the ”Menstrual Hygiene Day” celebration organised by the Girls Education Unit of the Sunyani Municipal Education Directorate, in collaboration with the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG) and Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED), at Abesim near Sunyani.
The event, which had the slogan: “Menstruation is not a Problem, Poor Menstrual Hygiene Is” brought together hundreds of school girls and teachers from basic schools within the Sunyani Municipality with each girl receiving a packet of sanitary pad.
Research had proven that girls who did not have access to sanitary pads during menstruation sometimes fell sick or dropped out of school among many challenges encountered, she said.
Ms Esther Boateng Awuah, a Midwife and Project Coordinator, PPAG Sunyani, told the girls that having menstruation was for a purpose, hence they should not be worried whenever they experienced that period in their lives.
She appealed to the traditional authorities to reintroduce ‘Bragoro’ (puberty rites) to help shape and mould young girls to be more responsible.
Ms Anthonia Etsuah, the Bono Regional Programmes Coordinator, CAMFED, urged the girls to take menstrual hygiene seriously, be more responsible in their youthful days to become dependable adults in future.
