The Rebecca Agroh Memorial Foundation (RAM Foundation), a Non-Governmental Organization committed to the development of women through advocacy and skills training, has marked this year’s menstrual hygiene day in Mafi-Kumasi SHS, with a call to break the stigma associated with menstruation among young girls.
As a result of inadequate education on menstruation, there have always been feelings of anxiety and fear among adolescent girls in schools during their menstrual periods.
Most of them who do not have the courage and knowledge to handle such moments absent themselves from school until their menstruation ends. Girls in schools without exclusive sanitary facilities for them had to go home to change themselves and they mostly never return.
The situation RAM Foundation believes could be quelled, if young people are empowered and made to learn and talk about their periods and its associated challenges.
In line with the organisation’s objectives, an outreach program was held in Mafi-Kumasi Senior High Technical School to mark the world’s menstrual hygiene day and educate the students on how to take care of themselves during their periods.
With the help of Madam Antoinette Da-Rocha, a resource person from Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG), the girls in the school were educated on the reproductive system and how its functions. They were also taught on how to overcome the anxiety that comes with menstruation and keep themselves tidy during the period.
The World Menstrual Hygiene Day is observed annually on the 28th of May. With this year’s theme being “From anxiety to confidence” the young girls were encouraged to accept menstrual periods as a natural phenomenon that embodies their womanhood.
Girls impact project
The Foundation also used the day to launch its model project dubbed Girls Impact Project aimed at training young girls in non – traditional women vocational skills such as mobile phone repairing, carpentry, graphic designing among others.
The project according to the Executive Director, Mr. Hardi Yakubu, is to help equip the youth with entrepreneurial skills and reduce the alarming rate of employment in the country.
He was confident that, the project after it is successfully rolled out in Mafi-Kumasi Senior Technical School, would be replicated in other schools across the country.
The students, who also received packs of sanitary pads from the NGO together with the Assistant Headmaster of the School, Frank Amesimeku, thanked the foundation for deeming it right to choose the school among other schools in the region.
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By: King Nobert Akpabli/citifmonline.com/Ghana