Access to Sanitary Wear for 1000 Girls in Matobo

Access to Sanitary Wear for 1000 Girls in Matobo Project 3rd Quarter report

In the third quarter the “Access to Sanitary Wear for 1000 girls in Matobo” Project continued to implement the Reusable sanitary pads project. The project conducted one more training at Zamanyoni Primary School and three monitoring visits at both Mahetshe Secondary School and Zamanyoni Primary School. The monitoring visits were fruitful as they highlighted areas of improvement for the programme and also showed the impact the programme has on the trained participants.

The monitoring visits follow the reusable pads trainings held at both sites. The training at Mahetshe Secondary School had forty young girls between the ages of thirteen and eighteen who trained during the first quarter on how to make reusable pads and were provided with materials to make five pads each that they can use on a monthly basis. At Zamanyoni Primary School twenty women who are care givers for girls and young women who are between the ages of ten and twenty-four were trained on how to make reusable pads which the girls and young women will be able to use on a monthly basis and were also provided with materials to make five sanitary pads each.

At Mahetshe Secondary School the project has made an impact, the forty girls that were trained on how to make the reusable sanitary pads have gone on to train thirty more girls. Ms Ncube one of the school teachers has taken initiative to head the program in the school. 80 % of the girls have managed to complete making five sanitary pads each and 50 % have used the sanitary pads.

The project team interviewed two girls during the monitoring visits who have used the sanitary pads Nokulunga Moyo and Beauty Mbira. Nokulunga Caroline Moyo is a fifteen-year-old girl currently doing her form two at Mahetshe Secondary School. Nokulunga resides with her single mother and two siblings they do not have a father. Nokulunga stated that her mother is a vendor who works hard to make ends meet and the reusable pads helped as they help cut costs in their household. Beauty Mbira is also a fifteen-year-old girl currently doing her form two at Mahetshe Secondary School. Beauty resides with her grandmother and her parents who are both unemployed. Her grandmother is her primary caregiver and struggles to provide everything Beauty needs hence the reusable pads help in their household. Beauty started using the reusable pads in March and has used them for two months.

On the 28^th of May the organisation joined the rest of the world in celebrating Menstrual Health Day 2019 by running a Facebook campaign to take action to create a world where no girl is held back by their periods. The aim was to break taboos that surround menstruation and raise awareness of the importance of good menstrual hygiene management worldwide. https://www.facebook.com/hocic.zimbabwe/photos/

The challenge that is currently being faced is lack of funding and also unavailability of materials in Zimbabwe due to the current economic crisis. In the near future, funds permitting the project would like to introduce the  Menstrual Cup as it is more sustainable and cuts costs on sanitary wear in the long run.