Part 2- Alleviating Period Poverty: MHM

 

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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 (Tellier 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 supportive environment where girls can discuss and learn about issues surrounding MHM (Tellier and Hyttel 2018). Moreover there is the implementation of the Always School Programme (ASP). This has been going since 1993 and the aims of this is to provide a safe learning environment, teacher training, puberty and menstrual education and sample sanitary pads to girls, with long term supplies to those who need it most. This programme has reached over 11 million Kenyan girls since it has started. Moreover, Always initiated their Keeping Girls In School Programme (AKGIS)in Kenya which has been a positive impact to 120,000 girls. Under this programme, trained nurses give weekly talks to adolescent girls about puberty and menstruation. This allows them to learn about the hygiene, health and changes that are occurring in their body, with particular focus on the need to communicate openly about puberty in order to break stigma and increase knowledge (Fialkov and Haddad n/d).

It is important to highlight that education surrounding MHM  must not be a one-off thing, it has to be lifelong in order to provide substantial change (Tellier and Hyttel 2018). Also one should not only focus on only educating females, but educating males too in order to properly reduce the taboo of periods (Tull 2019).There is the need for males to be allies and do their part in order to get rid of the stigma surrounding periods (Each Other 2018)

Reduced stigmatization and better MHM practices can be further aided through national agency.

Tull (2019) highlights how important it is that girls have aid from their governments to provide infrastructure, support, and clean spaces to allow for the safe and sanitary disposal of material. The Kenyan government has shown very strong commitment towards combatting MHM, especially through the establishment of the National Sanitary Towel Campaign Coordinating Committee in 2008 (Tellier and Hyttel 2018). This programme provides sanitary towels to all girls in schools, trains teachers on hygienic use and disposal of sanitary towels (FSG 2016), so they can teach students.

A common point that was repeatedly highlighted when researching this topic was the overall lack of significance in the recognition of MHM. Firstly, MHM is not highlighted as a clear indicator within the SDGs (Pouramin et al 2020). Although, there is the joint monitoring programme created by the WHO and UNICEF which advocates for inclusion of MHM in the post sustainability goals. Kenya is obviously taking positive actions in order to combat inadequate MHM management, yet despite gains, both girls and boys have limited access to comprehensive education, with misconception and bad MHM practices still existing in the most vulnerable of communities (FSG 2016). However, improving MHM will actually contribute to fulfilling  the SDGs in terms of health and wellbeing (3), education (4), empowerment (5) and water and sanitation (6) (SSwanyana and Bitanhirwe 2017), thus reinforcing its importance.

There is no doubt the MHM has been a rather neglected issue (Sommer and Sahin 2013). As previously highlighted, this is a significant multifaceted problem, which requires a variety of solutions, and this needs to be universally acknowledged. This includes solutions from improving safe water access to breaking the stigma surrounding menstruation. Only then will sustainable equitable development take place allowing for the fulfilment of the SDGs.