NGO supplies girls with sanitary pads

Global Media Foundation (GLOMEF), a human right Non-Governmental Organisation is to supply 30,000 sanitary pads worth GH¢ 90,000 free of charge to needy girls in selected Senior High and Junior high Schools in the country.

Under the NGOs three year project, aimed at promoting menstrual hygiene more than 15,000 girls in 30 schools in Brong-Ahafo, Northern and Upper West Regions will benefit from the distribution, which according to the NGO will commence in September this year.

The project dubbed “Advocating for Young People’s Access to Safe Abortion and Contraceptive Services”, GLOMEF will establish girls clubs in the beneficiary schools and sensitize them on reproductive health issues. The project is being funded by the Safe Abortion Fund (SAF).

Mr Raphael Godlove Ahenu, Chief Executive Officer of GLOMEF, who disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview on Monday, noted that many girls in Senior High and Junior High schools could not manage themselves well during menstruation.

This, he explained, was because some of them especially those in deprived communities, could not afford to buy sanitary pads and either therefore used tattered cloth, rags or cotton wool during menstruation.

Mr Ahenu observed that because some of the girls used unsanitary pads, they contract various urinal tract infections.

He said a research conducted by UNICEF in 2003 showed that school dropout rate among girls in deprived areas was rife because they could not manage themselves well during menstruation periods because most of the schools had no sanitary facilities.

Mr Ahenu explained that his NGO procured 10,000 pieces of the sanitary pads and would soon start the distribution.