Beyond lacking adequate facilities or supplies for learning, there are other barriers that Ghanaian girls face that stop them from getting the education that they need: lack of access to feminine hygiene materials, and a stigma around menstruation.
In 2014, Sustainable Development Focus, an NGO, found that 95% of rural Ghanaian school girls miss school for an entire week each month because they have no way to manage their menstruation. Nearly a quarter of their education is missing because they lack basic supplies that many women in developed countries wouldn’t think twice about.
Missing one week of school each month doesn’t just mean that a girl is learning 25% less than her peers, it also means that when she returns she also must teach herself both the missed material as well as the current week’s material. Anyone who has ever missed a few days of school due to illness can relate to this–the anxiety of trying to learn something that makes little sense so that one does not fall further behind, the desperate asking around to be sure that one knows exactly what they missed the last week, the busy nights spent trying to do a double load of work…
Empower Playgrounds became personally interested in this issue when founder Ben visited the village of Bahankra one day, and requested to meet the top student in the school. He was informed that the top student, Erika, was not attending that day due to her menstruation. When he did meet her, he learned that she wanted to become a doctor, and spent extra time each night studying because she loved learning so much. Erika, and girls like her who work hard to not only stay in school but excel in it, deserve to be able to come to school every day. But what can be done to enable them to stop missing school?
Meet Erika
So Empower Playgrounds began looking for a partner to help students like Erika continue learning even while they’re on their periods. Another organization, Days For Girls, seems to be the answer.
Days for Girls is an NGO that creates affordable sanitary kits for girls in developing countries worldwide. Their kits contain reusable pads, soap, wash clothes, panties, absorbent liners, a drawstring bag, and Ziploc bags for washing used pads. And they’re beautiful–each piece of the kit is hand-sewn in bright colors to remind girls that being on their period isn’t something to be ashamed of.
One of the DFG kits, in all its colorful glory.
These kits haven’t reached many of the schools that EPI has worked with, but this fall we intend to change this. Empower Playgrounds will start by taking 500 DFG kits to Ghana this summer, to make the lives of 500 girls easier and help them take full advantage of their educational opportunities.