The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has disclosed that the agency is set to establish menstrual banks across some schools in Northern Nigeria. The UNICEF Education Specialist, Mrs. Mairama Dikwa, made the disclosure in Bauchi state today that work will commence by this year November across all schools with Girls Enrolment Project 3 (GEP3). According to Dikwa, the project will focus on Menstrual Hygiene Management, a project that was established to support and ensure that Girls remain at school.
She explained that the UNICEF target a larger school enrolment of Girl-Child with such a laudable project by ensuring that the girls did not break the cycle of school learning which used to be the practice in those days, especially in rural schools.
Narrating the olden day's practice, she laments that in those days, when a girl has come of age and was undergoing menstrual cycle, she had to stay away from school for some time as she do not have the means to take care of herself through the period as a rural parent could not afford a sanitary pad.
While Speaking, Dikwa said, “What we are aiming to do is to make sure that each school where we are intervening has a menstrual bank where some of the pads would be stored and the girls can have access whenever they are menstruating.
“We are working with High-Level Women Advocate (HILWA) to create awareness and sensitize most specifically, the policymakers to the need to support some of these schools with the pads, “This would enable the girls to use and remain in school.
“This will really go a long way in making sure that even when the girls are menstruating, they will feel comfortable to come to school because they know that they would be supported,” Dikwa added.
She explained that UNICEF was strategizing on how to support the parents of such wards with the usage of reusable pads, and this would give the parent a sense of contributing to the menstrual hygiene of their children.
According to her, to kick-start the program, UNICEF has penciled 50 Junior Secondary Schools in each of the six states of Sokoto, Zamfara, Niger, Kano, Bauchi, and Katsina where the UNICEF GEP 3 project was implemented.
She added that the agency was able to extend the program to additional four states where they consider there is a high level of women advocacy.
She revealed that apart from the six states earlier mentioned, Adamawa, Gombe, Plateau, and Borno states have also keyed into the initiative to make sure that they have pad banks in 50 Junior Secondary Schools across their states,”