Hope comes to young girls in Abuja, Nigeria as they learn about menstruation

May 28, 2017 was observed globally as Menstrual Hygiene Day. It is generally considered to be a global opportunity for partners across all sectors to engage in awareness, advocacy, and knowledge sharing around the importance of menstrual hygiene management.

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Hope and Dreams Initiative celebrated with girls in FCT Abuja and Warri, Delta State. It organized a TED interactive talk at the FCT Education Resource Centre, City Library, Abuja on the theme: “Education to create awareness among girls on the need to observe hygiene during their menstrual period through sharing of our period experiences”

Students from different schools within Abuja and Warri were all present for the event. Students from schools such as Queen Amina college, LEA Primary School, Aleytia, LEA Primary School, Gosa and Government Girls Secondary School Kaduna all shared their period experiences and read a poem about periods.

The girls in attendance all seemed very excited to be at the event, but did not hold back, as they shared their sad realities about how they had no knowledge about menstruation. They cited their first experiences and said that it was very challenging for them. They also said that they often hid their experiences from their parents and resorted to using rags and tissues because they had no money to buy sanitary pads.

11 Years old Amina who also shared her heart touching experience, said that she personally used rags because she is from a single parent home and her mother has no money to buy sanitary pads for her.  She was particularly happy to have received our hygiene bag filled with sanitary pads, deodorant, toothpaste/brush and soap.

In overall, the event saw 30 students from 5 different schools from the northern parts of Nigeria received hygienes bag with sanitary pads, deodorant, toothpaste/brush, and soap.

In the event’s final remarks and roundup, Mr. Anais who is a teacher from one of the schools in Kaduna, called for increased public awareness to eradicate the misconceptions, myths and negative perceptions about menstruation and expressed gratefulness to Hope and Dreams Initiative for organizing a wonderful event.

Menstrual Hygiene 2019: Young school girls go home happy as they receive sanitary packs

Menstruation products don’t come cheap, but for anyone with a period, they’re essential. Women, girls in Nigeria and the world over are forced to resort to toilet paper, old scraps of fabric or absolutely nothing at all during their time of the month. Which is why  Hope and Dreams Initiative celebrates Menstrual Hygiene Day (MH Day) to raise awareness of the challenges people face and open the dialogue on menstruation and distribute menstrual hygiene products to girls in public schools to prevent them from being sexually molested.

This year we want to say no more limits, no more shame on period or towards any girl menstruating. We want to create awareness and involve the boys, men and the whole community. We want everybody to start talking about menstruation, menses or period because it’s a natural thing and it feels cool to have period.

  1. LEA Aleyita Primary School

  2. LEA Kuchigooro Primary School

  3. LEA Kunyami Primary School

  4. LEA Kapwa Primary School

  5. LEA Bassan Jiwa Primary School

  6. LEA Gui Primary School

  7. LEA Chika Primary School

  8. LEA Barwa Primary School

  9. LEA PRIMARY SCHOOL PIWOYI

  10. LEA PRIMARY SCHOOL KUNYAMI

Activities done on that day:

Experience Sharing; This was one of the most exciting activities as it was interactive and at the end, it totally achieved its aim. It was an inter generational sharing session, where adults were invited to share stories of their first menstrual experiences. These stories helped the younger ones feel more relaxed. Young menstruating pupils had the privilege to share their experiences after hearing from the adults.

Painting; This was almost a spiritual time for the kids especially, as they transferred all forms of their emotion to the painting canvas with the paint on it, using brushes, sprays and their bare hands.

Hand Washing Techniques; There was a serious emphasis on hand washing. To handle this activity, children were asked to demonstrate their personal hand washing procedure, afterward, there was a demonstration of the right procedure of hand washing.

Sanitary Packs; Re-usable Pads and underwear were shared accordingly to all menstruating students in attendance. A total of 500 Re-usable underwear and 500 Re-usable pads were given. This segment didn’t stop in sharing it to them, those materials were opened and the process of its usage was displayed in a glamorous manner.

Menstrual Hygiene Talk; We had a menstrual hygiene interactive talk with a medical practitioner. This session took the event to a very professional light and widened the knowledge available.

Drama; The host school presented a drama, unfolding the troubles faced by girls especially with their first menstrual experiences. This drama was an educative play that lasted for minutes yet sowed a seed that can last for a lifetime

A total of 1000 books was distributed to continue with our goal of changing the poor reading culture in Nigeria.

Taking Hand washing to another level for young students in 2017

On Global Hand Washing Day, we joined partners around the world to celebrate the importance of handwashing with soap as an effective and affordable way to prevent diseases and save lives.  This years’ celebration themed“Our Hands Our Future” was celebrated in six schools we have been working with, from Monday 16th- Friday 20th October 15, 2017.


Our WASH team visited partner schools, sensitizing their students’ WASH clubs on

  • Why It is Important for us to wash our hands with soap.

  • When to wash our hands, especially the critical moments

  • How to wash our hands

  • How proper hand washing habit reduces ones’ chances of contacting monkey pox

Hope and Dreams Initiative celebrated the Global Hand washing day with six schools with the participation of 782 students. Drama and poetry were performed by students, as they demonstrated the importance of hand washing with soap.

This celebration was enjoined and participated by 6 schools in Delta State Nigeria, Namely:

  • Dore-Numa College, Warri

  • Yonwuren College, Warri;

  • Ogiame Primary School, Warri;

  • Otsoron Primary School, Egbokodo Warri;

  • Egbokodo Secondary School, Warri

  • Tobrise basic Secondary School, Oghara, Delta State.

Making the 2018 Global Handwashing Day fulfilling for young Nigerian boys and girls

We delivered high impact event combining both International hand washing and menstrual hygiene celebration on the 15th of October with the theme MY HANDS, MY FUTURE, MY BODY, MY GEM which took place at L.E.A Primary School Aleyita Community, Lugbe, Abuja – FCT. Six LEA primary schools with their teachers in AMAC and Bwari Area Council of FCT were in attendance.

KADUNA TRIP

We also visited three schools in Kaduna and delivered a high impact event on handwashing, behavior change, and menstrual hygiene education. The girls learned about their bodies, the challenges they go through during their menstruation and the importance of washing their hands.

See more photos from the event below.

 

Bringing HIV/AIDS awareness to Abuja for the first time really paid off

We had our first WASH/HIV/AIDS Intervention awareness at Aleyita in Abuja, FCT  and the main problem of Aleyita is poor health which leads to high rate of preventable diseases and high risk of opportunistic diseases among children infected and affected by HIV, including People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWH).

One advantage of this training was the urge in participants to have their status known. They all clamored for HIV Testing and Counseling outreach. H&DI embarked on a 3-day free tea HIV/AIDS testing and counseling outreach in Aleyita community in Abuja, FCT from 3rd to 5th December, 2018. With the aim of reaching out to at least 1000 households with HCT in the community and ensuring they know their status to guide their living.

The H&DI team comprising of medical personnel, counselors, testers and care givers were mobilized to site on the 3rd and worked through the 5th of December 2018 to meet our stated objectives.

2016 Global Hand Washing Day takes a different turn for young girls

Since 2015, Hope and Dreams Initiative have been supporting menstrual and reproductive health education in Nigeria, a practice we call Hygiene for Girls.

Lack  of access to menstrual products impacts millions of girls across the country. As many as 10% miss school because of it. The effect of these missed days is devastating, with girls missing up to 20% of their education, thereby increasing the likelihood of dropping out, earlier marriage and pregnancy as well as limiting career options.

Hope and Dreams Initiative support the provision of menstrual pads. Providing these products means the burden of purchasing products each month is removed.

The case for girls’ education is well documented as one of the most important tools for development. We believe that no one should have to miss out on opportunities that will affect their future, simply because they have a period.

This is why the Hope and Dreams Initiative took the 2016 Global Handwashing day as an opportunity to organize a special event which was aimed at educating young girls on the importance of taking their hygiene more seriously.

The students and their teachers worked tireless preparing for the event, and we were super proud of them. Students and teachers at the Abuja event sang the official hand washing song in two different native Nigerian language and the schools at the event in Niger Delta, performed a play, poem and also the hand washing song illustrating the importance of washing hands every day and after every activities.

The girls were excited to receive their hygiene bag and all students got a goodie bag filled with hygiene stuff and they all promised, signed and pledged to wash their hands every day.

We are taking one child, one school and one community at a time.

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Changing the menstrual experience for young girls in Warri, Nigeria

Hope and Dreams Initiative held an event at PIND conference training hall in Warri, Delta State with 40 students from seven different schools to mark the 2017 International Hygiene Menstruation day Celebration. The schools namely, Toberise BASIC School Oghara, Ogiame Primary School, Dora Numa College, Egbokogdo Secondary, and Primary School, Younna Secondary School. Dr. Elohor Imiruaye of Lee Clinic, Warri in Delta State. Dr. Elohor all joined to mark the event.

The event workshop which followed addressed clearly that the concern that wrong attitudes would continue if girls and boys were not given adequate education concerning menstruation and how to handle challenges associated with it.  A simple explanatory lecture about the significance of menstruation and the importance of keeping clean during and after menstruation was also given.

Faith, a junior student from Tobrise Basic School, Oghara in Delta State, shared her first-period experience with all those in attendance at the workshop.

She said that at first, she thought that she was hurt and was bleeding and she would cut pieces of rags to protect the blood from staining her uniform, but a friend later explained to her that she was menstruating and could get pregnant if she becomes sexually intimate with a boy.

Laura a student from Egbokogdo Secondary School, also shared that she uses rag for her sanitary products and has no access to sanitary pads because her family is very poor.

All 40 students in attendance went home with individual hygiene bags all filled with reusable and disposable sanitary pads, deodorant, and a toothpaste/brush.

In overall, Hope and Dreams Initiative was able to donate 70 hygiene bags to 70 students from 12 different schools.

The goal of the event was to bring young girls from different schools together in a bid to educate them about their menstrual cycle, the importance of Menstruation and other health-related issues and as an organization whose main goals are EDUCATION, MENSTRUATION AND HYGIENE we believe that Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facilities with soap should be provided in the schools as part of efforts to make them menstrual friendly to encourage girls to be in school during their menstrual periods, since most girls stayed away from school during their menses which consequently affects their academic performance.

And these three key elements are important, which included awareness creation on menstruation and a menstrual-friendly environment in schools, would help empower girls to stay in schools and help improve their academic performance.

We believe that education about Menstruation changes everything and it starts with us.