Puberty education among pre-teens needs to gain momentum

As the world is gearing up to mark the International Day of the Girl Child this Saturday, it is important that Kenyans take time and celebrate women’s achievement and look at ways to gain momentum in championing women’s equality.

Kenya has made significant momentum in educating the girl child, which has seen more and more girls exposed to the possibilities and opportunities around them. As a result, the country has witnessed lower child mortality rates, better child care, better education outcomes and smaller families.

However, even as we make great strides towards making the Kenyan woman more economical, politically and socially empowered, we must not forget the basics of aspects of womanhood: feminine hygiene education.

This year, the Government allocated Kshs. 300 million  in the provision of free sanitary towels to girls in schools during the school calendar year. I commend the move and believe that the provision should continue to be coupled with feminine hygiene education on the use of sanitary pads as well as personal hygiene. With the sanitary pad market penetration being at 15 percent, stakeholders need to evaluate how to better create awareness about the use and importance of sanitary pads to young girls.

I remember my journey to sensitizing stakeholders in education on the importance of mainstreaming puberty education and provision of sanitary towels begun in 2007 during stakeholders meetings to discuss best practices on the issue. I am glad that there is light at the tunnel and now the issue of girls missing school is talked not just in quiet but is all over the media.

Even with many organizations starting sanitary pads distribution around the country, one seeks to ask what happens to girls in the rural parts of the country who have never heard of sanitary pads despite them having started their menstrual period. Then one begs to ask, will the 300 million be enough to reach that girl in the rural Kenya?

As Always is a global player on menstrual hygiene, we feel responsible and committed to share our long-lasting experience in puberty and menstrual education- as we have done this since 1956 globally and locally for over 20 years. 

Being a Global player on menstrual hygiene, we feel responsible and committed to share our long-lasting experience in puberty and menstrual education, to democratize our knowledge and make our products available to teenage girls for experiencing them, in line with the overall Always brand purpose of advocating and empowering woman to live life to their fullest potential. This is the reason why we invest in the range of educational programs: providing the experience of our menstrual products is unconceivable without providing the educational necessary background to teenage girls.

As a company, we have taken upon ourselves to complement the Government’s effort by promoting personal hygiene among young girls, to take away the fears among girls during menstruation, to let the girls know clearly about their reproductive system and about the best menstrual protection system. With simple mechanisms such as hiring qualified registered nurses to pass the health education message and providing free sanitary pads samples, Procter & Gamble has been able to reach over 200,000 girls annually.

However our efforts are just a drop in the ocean and to be able reach more girls, more stakeholders in both the public and private sector must join efforts to reach more girls with the feminine and puberty education. It is pointless to arm a girl with a sanitary pad and no education on how to use it or how to take care of her body during her menstrual period.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, more than one in ten school girls skip more than a day when menstruating due to lack of awareness on how to take care of themselves. This is between 10 – 25 percent of their time in school thus creates a disadvantage on them over their boy counterparts. This is a figure we must all strive to eradicate through private public partnerships.

With time, we should have more meaningful International Day of the Girl Child celebrations once small initiatives such as provision of sanitary pad and puberty education to girls have gained national momentum.

As poet Maya Angelou once said, “When you know better you do better.”

This article is authored by Irene Mwathi, Communications Manager at Procter & Gamble East Africa.