NGOs promote menstrual hygiene, cervical cancer screening in Northern Ghana

Afrika Nyornu, a non-profit organisation in health, in partnership with three non-governmental organisations (NGOs), has organised a training workshop for some selected communities and schools in the Northern Region.

The partner NGOs are the Ladies of Marshall, a Catholic friendly organisation, Charity Centre for Capacity Building and Development (CHACDET), a non-government organisation in youth development and Newage Agric Solutions, a company in agribusiness.

They also provided cervical cancer screening services to some of the women in those communities.

The Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) sensitisation and the cervical cancer screenings were aimed at improving women’s health and also to empower the local communities through education and access to critical health services. The beneficiary communities were Boaterigu, Botanga and Tamale.

In all, more than 2,000 schoolchildren, including boys, benefited from the MHM and about 300 women from the three communities benefited from the cervical cancer screening exercises.

At Boaterigu, Afrika Nyornu, in partnership with CHACDET, screened about 100 women for cervical cancer and conducted an MHM workshop for the pupils of Boaterigu DA Basic School.

The MHM was conducted using the guidelines developed by WASH United, a Berlin-based NGO, to engage students and young people in menstrual hygiene awareness.

Similar events took place at Botanga, where Afrika Nyornu collaborated with Newage Agric Solutions to provide healthcare screening for the residents and also screen the women for cervical cancer.

In Tamale, the team in collaboration with the Knights and Ladies of Marshall, visited the Bagabaga Demonstration JHS and the Our Lady of Annunciation Cathedral in Salaga, to engage the students and the residents on menstrual hygiene and cervical cancer screening.

The Executive Director of Afrika Nyornu, Gifty Maloe Nartey, was grateful to the partners who supported her organisation in undertaking the exercise and also grateful to the communities for the support and their positive response to the programmes.

She called for continuous support to like-minded organisations like hers to extend critical services such as cervical cancer education and menstrual hygiene management to hard-to-reach communities.