In Ethiopia, 51% of girls miss up to 4 days of school every month because of it.
In Ghana it affects the attendance of 95% of girls.
In some cultures, women are made to stay in a hut at the edge of the village until it's over.
Everyday 800 million women are dealing with it.
What is it?
Periods.
In the UK, when women get their periods they have their sanitary towels or their tampons or their moon-cups to deal with it. And they go off to school or work or uni and can get on with the day. The people around them probably don't even notice.
But unfortunately this is not the story for millions of women and girls around the world. Education about menstrual health in the developing world is lacking, many girls do not even know what a period is until they get their first one - and you can imagine that it is a scary experience! Some women believe that missing a period means they are unwell, and there is often a cultural stigma that brands a menstruating woman as 'dirty'. Girls at secondary school use all sorts of things to try and manage their period while they are in class, dry leaves, old rags, cotton wool, newspaper - whatever's available to try and soak up the blood and stop it from leaking onto their uniforms. As you can imagine, these aren't the most effective materials and girls are often teased by their classmates - especially the boys - when it becomes clear that she is on her period. The problem doesn't end there though. Often schools have inadequate toilet facilities, pit latrines without doors or no access to running water for the girls to wash their rags. In fact 1 in 3 do not have access to adequate sanitation. You can't blame them for not wanting to go. And their education is suffering because of it.
The problem doesn't end there however. Even if girls did have the sanitary towels sold in the shops, they don't always have the underwear to put them in. That's why we've come up with 'pants to poverty'. Poverty is pants. And we're trying to be a tiny drop in the ocean of the efforts to end it.
Starting with pants and periods and pads.
This summer I am going to Tanzania with my mum, aunty, uncle and cousins with the charity GO MAD (Go Make A Difference). The five of us girls are in charge of the menstrual health project. Below is a photo of us but it's about three years old - I couldn't find a more recent one!!
We're going to be running workshops with local women and girls to teach them about the menstrual cycle and help them to learn how to make their own reusable pads. In Swahili they are known as 'mwezi pads' and we're hopefully going to be able to provide each lady with a ready-made pad.
If you're interested in finding out more about our project then head over to our fundraising page or GO MAD's website.
