Girls in Bongo District receive sanitary towels

The Bongo Youth Association based in Accra (BYA) has provided sanitary towels to girls in two schools in the Bongo District of the Upper East Region.They are the Saint Annes Roman Catholic Junior High School and the Saligba Junior High School.

The presentation was in response to concerns raised by girls in the three regions of the north for support from government and public-spirited organisations to support them in staying neat when they had their menses.

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Ceremony

Addressing separate presentation ceremonies held for the beneficiary schools, the President of the BYA, Mr Azure Imoro Abdulai, said it was unfortunate that due to lack of sanitary towels, some girls had to stay in their various homes until the end of their menstrual period before going to school.

He explained that such a situation had the tendency of impacting negatively on the academic performance of the girls, and entreated other organisations and citizens of Bongo and the entire three regions of the north to support girls education.

The Bongo District Director of Education, Mr Duncan Nsoh, indicated that research had shown that girls in some schools had mentioned the provision of sanitary towels as their top priority and explained that the provision of sanitary towels for the girls enabled them to concentrate on their studies, prevent absenteeism,and infection due to the use of unhygienic materials as sanitary towels.

Mr Nsoh, therefore, commended the BYA for the gesture and hoped it would be sustained.

The Bongo District Chief Executive, Mr Peter Ayamga, expressed the willingness of the district assembly to set aside some funds to start providing sanitary towels for girls in schools on a regular basis.

He advised parents and guardians to provide sanitary towels for their girls to prevent them from asking boys and men for money to purchase them.

Background

The BYA in Accra, which currently has 300 members, was formed on May 19, 2011 with the aim of mobilising resources to empower the youth with education in the Bongo District.

The move by the association was in response to a publication in the June 15, 2017 edition of the Daily Graphic which highlighted concerns by some school girls at Wulugu near Walewale in the Northern Region regarding their inability to buy sanitary towels and the problem was affecting their academic work.

The BYA, through its own research, discovered that the problem of girls inability to purchase sanitary towels persisted in the three regions of the North.