Build the Agency of 150 Adolescent Girls and Women

Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) is a major health issue affecting women and girls of reproductive age worldwide. A good percentage of the female population is of reproductive age and most of them are menstruating every month

The transition into reproductive age for some girls is often met with fear and anxiety due to poor knowledgeabout menstruation and a lack of access to resources about the changes that are occurring in their bodies. School-aged girls in marginalised communities face the largest barriers to MHM with a lot of myths surrounding them.

In addition to poor knowledge and lack of access many girls who are in school also face challenges accessing and maintaining quality MH practices because most schools do not have the necessary facilities, supplies, knowledge, and understanding to appropriately support girls during menstruation. This negatively impacts their education and ability to stay in school. Furthermore, schools often have inadequate water and sanitation available, making menstrual hygiene almost impossible to maintain, causing stress, school dropouts and embarrassment for female students. Also, communities hold cultural beliefs related to menstruation like menstruation is an unclean and secret issue which should not be discussed, you can’t get pregnant from having sex during menstruation and these affects the girls' wellbeing.

Another barrier that prevents MHM in schools and hinder girls’ access to equitable education, robs them of their dignity and empowerment opportunity is poor access to sanitation products.

In this quarter, we promoted the rights and wellbeing of girls in several ways.    

One of which is that we visited girls in schools and provided 50 In-school girls from Rido, Nassarawa and Karatudu communities in Kaduna state with reusable sanitary towels and menstrual health information that they would utilise to promote their wellbeing . This wouldn’t have been possible without your support and donations. Thank you for ensuring that Girls remain in school.

“I feel so happy that somebody loves and cares a lot about women, I am so happy. I just started seeing my monthly flow last month, as a matter of fact I had fears on how to take care of myself but with this knowledge my fears are gone.” - Mangal

“Today feels like Christmas for me. I am so happy, what even gladdens me more is the knowledge I got which I will use to educate my peers.” - Lariya

“This was a learning opportunity for me, I am excited because I learnt that I should always change my sanitary towel and not go a whole day with just one on” – Lami

With Nigeria’s education sector yet to fully recover from the debilitating impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, insecurity in form of violent attacks on schools by insurgents has further threatened the ability of schools to remain open for learning especially in northern states.

The North-west part of Nigeria which already has the highest share of the figure number of out-of-school children has also witnessed a series of attacks on schools, leaving pupils scared to return to classrooms and parents apprehensive about the safety of their children.

In Kaduna State where our project is active, there have been several cases of the mass kidnapping of students, especially in the last year. While this put a strain on our efforts to enroll out of school girls back into school, it has also affected our advocacy and campaign at the community level to promote girl-child education given that one of the arguments for low enrollment rates for girls is the lack of safety and vulnerability to experiencing sexual and gender-based violence while in school or on the way to school.

In spite of these challenges, we have been able to successfully complete the enrolment process for our out-of-school girls some of whom had been unable to re-enroll due to displacements caused by insecurity. For others, the insecurity led to the loss of Family members, benefactors, sources of income, and so on. All of which had led to a lack of resources to afford the levies and materials required for school.

Ruth from Rido community  who left school because of the insecurity in her area which resulted in their home being set on fire said ‘I gave up on school the moment bandits started terrorizing us, what is even worst is when my uniforms caught fire when our house got burnt, my parents did not know where to start, I’m grateful that I have been given another chance and I can return to school”

For Sarah, the situation is slightly different. After getting married at 15 as a means to improve the economic status of her family and relieve the financial burden for her parents, she dropped out of school. “ It wasn’t what I wanted but I couldn’t see any other way. We were very poor and barely able to feed, I hoped I could convince my new husband to sponsor my education but that didn’t happen but now that I have gotten another opportunity to be educated I will not allow my children to suffer as I did, I will make sure I educate them”. Through our advocacy and mediation, we were able to get her husband’s consent for her to be a beneficiary get another chance at schooling. 

While we realize that government and institutions have the most role to play in ensuring access to education more so since there is a free education policy in the state, In addition to holding government accountable to fulfill and provide the necessary inputs that will make this a reality, we also realize that there are immediate needs that need to be addressed. Over the last few months, through your generous support,  our activities have centered around addressing these immediate needs- providing books, uniforms, and other scholarly materials as well as offsetting bills that have stood in the way of young girls going to school and most importantly educating the communities on the need to prioritize girls education. For some of our beneficiaries, they were out of school as a result of the gender biases that prioritize boys’ education over girls. To address this, we conducted community sensitizations and campaigns.

With the help of key community stakeholders who have also been actively involved in this campaign, we have been able to identify the most vulnerable girls who are out of school and have made it possible for them to continue learning including carrying out mediation between parents and caregivers where necessary. Our goal is to see that barriers to girls' education are removed and that no girl is left behind.  

We thank you for your generous support which has made this possible. Together we can make progress towards increasing access to education for many more girls in Kaduna state.