Kenia: ONE WORLD NETWORK teenage reusable sanitary support

The chart shows three schools that are supported by PBF monthly with reusable sanitary pads for the teenage girls in primary schools who are unable to afford the normal disposable sanitary pads.

Since year 2015 to date the chart shows how the three schools have been benefiting from the support. In 2015, girls from the Page Vision, a slum informal school in Mathare have shown a lot of school improvement  unlike before, they don’t miss classes during their menstrual cycle. Our monthly budget is 300 USD. This amount enables us to reach out to 20 new girls per month.

Unlike the disposable pads, we are able to provide each new girl a pack consisting of 3 pads that they are trained to use and re-use hygienically for a period of 1 year at a cost of 12 dollars. We have identified a local youth group that produces these pads locally and trains the girls on their usage and care. Apart from the financial saving, the girls benefit from this project in several ways. The re-usability of these pads is environmentally friendly, general hygiene training, sex education and financial discipline.

The immediate benefits that we have documented:

1. Improved academic performance because girls are not missing classes.
2. Reduced drop-out rate of girls due to natural puberty menstruation cycle.
3. Improved confidence by the girls who are now free from embarrassment and jokes from classmates.
4. Reduced teenage pregnancy. For lack of sanitary pads, vulnerable adolescents are forced to engage into sexual activities in exchange for sanitary pad money.

Expansion

We would wish to extend our reach to more teenage girls especially in the rural areas where the lack of information and the actual pads is still a problem .To achieve this we would wish to reach out to more schools and villages in the next 12 months.

Budget

ONE WORLD NETWORK TEENAGE REUSABLE SANITARY SUPPORT

That is the budget per year.