Foundation sensitises Kumasi schools to menstrual hygiene

Touching the Lives of Girls Foundation International (TLGFI), a non-governmental organisation that focuses on empowering girls, has held two events on menstrual hygiene and mental health for basic, senior and tertiary institutions in Kumasi.

The events held at the Calvary Charismatic Centre and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) had over 4,000 girls from selected schools across the Ashanti Region participating.

The participants were also taken through career guidance and financial literacy tips from experts. The President of the foundation, Nana Ama Adutwuwaa, said since its inception, the foundation had empowered and provided sanitary products to thousands of female students throughout the country.

She said the aim of the foundation was to educate girls on menstrual hygiene, how to stay clean to avoid infections, demonstrate the use of sanitary pads and also provide them with sanitary pads.

Ms Adutwuwaa said the objective of the foundation was also to break the myth surrounding menstrual hygiene and to get the girls to open up to their challenges, fears and to help them to stay in school.

Education

She said because issues of menstruation were considered taboo in some homes, some girls were unable to talk to their parents about it and sought help from their peers who also taught them the wrong things they learned.

She said although over the years the foundation had focused its attention on girls from the upper primary level to the senior high school, it decided to add the university students this year.

Addressing students at the Great Hall of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), a gynaecologist with the St Dominic Hospital at Akwatia, Dr John K. Bosomtwe, called on educational institutions in the country to try and dedicate a toilet facility in their institutions for girls to use during menstruation.

He said during that time of the month, girls needed privacy to change themselves and a convenient place to dispose of sanitary materials. He advised that the schools should also have a place to dispose of the used sanitary pads, in order not to contaminate the environment.

Product types

Dr Bosomtwe stressed on the need for girls to know the various types of sanitary products on the market and choose the one that suited their body. He, however, advised women against inserting all kinds of products into their private part, all in the name of keeping the place tight.

 Girls at the Calvary Charismatic Centre

He said the private part self-regulated itself and if one tempered with its acid level it could open them up to all sorts of infections. The Vice-Chancellor of KNUST, Prof. Rita Akosua Dickson, who stood in for Lady Julia Osei Tutu, wife of Otumfuo Osei Tutu, the Asantehene, commended the foundation and its donors for embarking on such a programme to educate girls on menstrual hygiene, mental health and career guidance.

She said such educational programmes went a long way to boost the confidence of the girl child, which also had an impact on their mental health.