Gender and Water: The Case Study of Africa

  source Following on from the last post, I will now focus on software solutions for addressing MHM, examining education and national agency. I believe that education, is the most important aspect, if long-term change is to take place, not only surrounding MHM, but WaSH and gender in general. Education of MHM allows issues such as discrimination and exclusion to be addressed, creates an environment which is supportive and allows the needs of females to be supported ( SSwanyana and Bitanhirwe 2017 ), and in doing so, breaks the negative narrative surrounding menstruation, and thus creates long term changes to knowledge and attitudes. With the better knowledge to handle their menses, this reduces school absenteeism, which reduces the potential for early pregnancy and child marriage  (T ellier and Hyttel 2018 ). In Kenya, a group called Empower Net provides in-and-out of school education support group for girls struggling with their menses. The aim of this is to create a supp...

  In last week’s blogs post, I examined period poverty and how the lack of safe water and the gender inequality perpetuate this, leading to a variety of physical, mental and societal impacts on girls. Therefore, I will now look at the different forms of MHM that has been put in place, in order to reduce these impacts. MHM is known as having the right materials to improve comfort and dignity whilst a female is on her period ( Sommer and Sahin 2013 ).  MHM is multifaceted problem and thus requires a variety of solutions ( Wilson et al 2014 )- so I will be exploring this over 2 blog posts.  The image below highlights how a combination of hardware and software solutions can sufficiently improve MHM. source Hardware solutions Local business initiatives have been set up to provide women with a combination of reusable and disposable sanitary products ( Wilson et al 2014 ). Two examples include the Afripads and the Makapads. Afripads:s ource Makapads: source   Af...

  source In last week’s blog about World Toilet Day, I emphasised the need to examine the gendered implications of sanitation thus allowing for development. Thus, this week I want to specifically look at period poverty with reference to Kibera, a shanty town in Kenya.  Period poverty is the combination of multiple practical and psychosocial deprivations which are experienced by mensuration women in resource poor settings  ( Crichton et al 2013 ) . Due to this, lives and wellbeing’s of women are being affected  (Action aid n/d) . In this blog I will elaborate on the dimensions which perpetuate period poverty, and how greater research is needed in reference to this.  Factors perpetuating period poverty The impact of insufficient WASH on females has been continuously highlighted throughout my blog, and of course this is the one of many factors perpetuating period poverty: Within Nairobi, less than ¼ of primary schools meet the minimum required latrines per pu...