Friday 15 November 2013

HEEALS Report On Water Sanitation Menstrual Hygiene & Girl Education

In August 2013, HEEALS carried out a monitoring and evaluation  exercise on its Water Sanitation Menstrual Hygiene and Girl Education projects in three schools following the delivery of previous awareness training. Results of the monitoring and evaluation are now available to view in our HEEALS report.

One issue to consider is that despite many girls having a good awareness and knowledge of Menstrual Hygiene, they are unable to practice what they know due to lack of facilities available in school.  The bad conditions of toilet facilities were reported by most participants, who stated that there was nowhere to place sanitary pads and no soap or water for hand washing. Similarly, many girls displayed an awareness of the importance of hand washing, yet were unable to put this into practice at school.

Schools greatly influence the behavior and mentality of children – they look to school as a source of knowledge. Yet through lack of sanitation facilities, schools are contributing to creating the mentality that hand washing and hygiene practices are not necessary. Lack of Menstrual Hygiene facilities  lead to menstrual hygiene becoming an invisible issue which is not addressed, increasing the  embarrassment  of young girls to discuss Menstrual Hygiene.

Another key point to consider is that most girls reported being treated differently by their family during menstruation, and cited parental choice as the main factor in the girl’s education. Parents need to be included in Menstrual Hygiene and Water Sanitation awareness projects as well as teachers and male students, to develop understanding surrounding these issues and to support girls in obtaining a good education.

Read the full report here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3-sg3TTDoppTmdYdW0yWUVEc3M/edit

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