….donates sanitary pads, underwear, buckets, others

By Gabriel Ewepu and Oluwafemi Ayooluwa

ABUJA – DESPITE women dominating Nigeria’s population of over 200 million, and show of numerical strength in civic responsibilities including general elections, they are faced with different challenges, which a nonprofit organization, FAME Foundation, weekend, pointed out that indigent women and teenage girls are grappling with current economic challenges, which had made it difficult for them to cope with cost of sanitary pads to take care of their mensural hygiene.

This concern was raised by the Executive Director, FAME Foundation, Aderonke Ogunleye-Bello, while explaining the Foundation’s menstrual health and hygiene workshop for the women and teenage girls at the Internally Displaced Persons, IDP, camp, Durumi, a suburb of Abuja in collaboration with the French Embassy in Nigeria.

According to Ogunleye-Bello, the workshop’s major goal was to teach these women and teenage girls how to use certain sanitary products and the importance of taking care of themselves during their menstrual cycle and even when they are not on their periods.

She said: “In Nigeria today, ‘period poverty’ is on the high side. Additionally, because the country’s economic situation is having an impact on women and teenage girls living in IDP camps, and majority of those living in IDP camps are there because certain things happened in their homes, cutting off their source of income, this prompted the organization to gear up by teaching them proper hygiene practices so they do not contract specific infections during their monthly period as well as how to make reusable pads to escape ‘period poverty’.

“Everything in the country has skyrocketed, and these people are vulnerable and do not have enough money to feed, let alone talk about sanitary pads.”

She further stated that 190 women and 62 girls will benefit from the training on how to produce reusable pads, “We are providing them with hygiene souvenirs to keep them clean, such as buckets, packers, pads, underwear, and some may also receive soaps.

“Additionally, a reusable pad can last them up to two years because it is more than simply a piece of fabric, it has been treated to prevent disease transmission.”

She also mentioned how their programme overlapped with four additional IDP camps in Abuja.

Meanwhile, the Women Leader, Durumi IDP, Liyatu Ayuba, expressed gratitude to FAME Foundation for the training workshop and donation of items to the women and girls in the camp while speaking on the importance of having a good mensural hygiene practice and products.

“If any woman is having her menstruation and they do not have this pad, they would not feel confident, if they use wrapper, they would not feel free”, Ayuba said.

She also said that most of the women and girls do not have money to buy pads, and as such, expressed her happiness to FAME Foundation for bringing sanitary pads to them and teaching them the right and hygienic way to use them, and added that other organizations should emulate FAME Foundation to reach out to IDP camps.