Often, girls don’t even know that sanitary pads exist and use DRY LEAVES, SAND, CHICKEN FEATHERS, DUNG, BANANA SKINS, NEWSPAPERS or pieces from FOAM MATTRESSES to be able to attend school. At times they dig a hole at home and sit in it for the duration of their menstruation. UNICEF published reports on how girls are also forced into sex for sanitary pads so that they can attend school.
A large percentage of girls DROP OUT of school because of falling behind in their studies or from being ashamed to attend school after being teased by their piers from soiling their clothes with blood. The only option for them is then to marry and have children at such young ages, where mortality rate is very high in childbirth because of the lack of clinics, medicines, doctors or nurses, leaving aside the problems of HIV, infections, etc.
Something so simple as a sanitary pad kit can prevent so many issues and give a girl a choice to stay in school and have a better chance of a future.
A sanitary pad kit includes: 6 FABRIC REUSABLE PADS, 3 FABRIC REUSABLE PAD HOLDER, 1 PAIR OF UNDERWEAR, 1 SOAP and 1 TOWEL each kit costs $10.
Padding Africa started the campaign to raise money to help women and girls become self-sustainable, giving women the opportunity to work by buying the pads they make from the donations and sponsors and also giving the girls a solution to attend school by distributing the reusable sanitary pad kits on our trips.
Tanya Puncuh – Padding Africa founder
