Girls

Sanitary Wear for School Girls Project

Project Case

"Almost all the girls at this school miss a week of lessons every month due to lack of sanitary wear and as a result, are failing their exams. I have over 300 teenage girls here who are finding it very difficult to lead a normal school life just because they cannot afford to buy naturally necessary sanitary pads. Being a girl should not be a burden!"

Mrs Madi (Senior lady teacher at Libenburg secondary school)

In Zimbabwe, country wide efforts to improve education for girls are being dampened by the cost of sanitary wear in rural areas. At USD$5 a pack of pads, parents can no longer afford to look after their own teenage children as more pressing issues like food are met first.

In turn, girls are missing school whenever they are on their periods because they cannot comfortably learn anything at that particular time. A week per month missed equates to a quarter of the whole school term which evidently leads to the failure of exams. This is a typical problem among rural school girls in remote Zimbabwe were the standard of living has gone down due to the current economic downturn.

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Effects of lack of sanitary wear

Health Concern – Girls are resorting to the use of newspapers, rags and tree buck as substitutes for pads. All these unhygienic substances leave girls with rushes and vaginal infections which they cannot easily be treated for. To make the situation worse, such infections are often wrongly thought to be sexually transmitted, leading to embarrassment and social exclusion at school.

Cost of health - A senior lady teacher at one of the schools explained that sanitary pads cost $5 a pack and are too expensive for parents who are already finding it difficult to pay for school fees and uniforms. She also cited incidences where girls developed shy tongues at the prospect of asking for money from their over stretched fathers who are usually the breadwinners.

Truancy and exclusion - Rural schools have experienced higher levels of truancy than normal among girls (absent from school a week every month) and this has led to a sharp decline in exam pass rates across all subjects. Girls feel embarrassed and rejected because they cannot meet the natural and compulsory costs of growing up hence staying at home becomes an obvious choice.

Inequality - The average pass rate for 0’levels examination for girls in Chikomba district is 15%, which is 20% lower than what boys are achieving. Future inequalities between men and women in Zimbabwe are, among many, direct products of failure to educate girls. Failure of exams is catalyst to numerous downstream problems like unemployment, early pregnancies and prostitution which eventually leads to AIDS.

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Our vision

‘‘Make school life for girls normal’’
‘‘Empower girls through education’’

The welfare of girls is a major concern within Zimbabwe especially in marginalised rural communities. Education being a major part of that welfare empowers girls and in most cases, guarantees them a positive future as fully grown women.
Educated Horizon aims to provide the poorest girls in rural Zimbabwe with necessary hygiene kits that would enable them to attend school every day and lead normal teenage lives. We will also support and encourage rural schools they attend to take up self sustaining sewing and knitting projects that would produce the required complimentary wear kits and in the process, leave them with the much needed future employment skills.

The Project : Sanitary Wear for School Girls

Goal

To promote education for girls in marginalised communities by improving their school attendance and reducing social exclusion – both aspects brought up by lack of sanitary wear.

Objectives

1. Improve girl school attendance to over 90% per school term by the end of 2010 and in the process; help improve girls’ academic pass rates.
2. Provide sanitary wear for all teenage girls within two academic communities (10 schools per community) from 2010 for a 3 year duration.
3. Build one incinerator (sanitary waste disposal unit) per school by the end of 2011.
4. Provide 300 sewing machines to 20 schools to facilitate self sustaining projects for girls that will leave them with future employment skills. 
5. Build a replication model that would help other school communities in future.

Target groups

After detailed research, Educated Horizon has chosen to initially work with 2 different school communities in rural Chikomba and Gutu Districts of Zimbabwe. Each community has 10 very close knit secondary schools that cater for more than 2000 girls whose parents are mostly very poor subsistence farmers. We chose these two communities because of calls for help from the respective schools which are experiencing low school turn out and low pass rates for girls.

The beneficial communities

Example brief background of schools

Gutu District

Guzha and Tirizi Secondary Schools – Quasi government schools (council/local government) of 700 students located over 40 km from Gutu growth point in Gutu District. The girls’ pass rates for O Level examinations are 5% (10% lower than that of boys in the same school). Teenage girls miss a quarter of the school term due to lack of sanitary wear which is expensive and in some instances, not available from the local shops.
 The district is situated in drought prone part of Zimbabwe making farming very difficult. It has very basic council day schools that cater for the local marginalised population which finds it difficult to pay for school fees and uniform.
There is no meaningful economic activity apart from not very successful subsistence farming as evidenced by long standing poverty for years. Such poverty levels have had long term bearing effects on the welfare of girls and boys. Girls in particular, who fail their final exams, end up getting married early and they do not look to further their careers.

Chikomba District

Chikwidibire and Liebenberg Secondary School

Chikwidibire is remotely situated in a farming area of Chikomba district, 60km from the local town Chivhu, the school has neared closure several times in the past few years due shortages of learning materials. Liebenberg is located in a small transit town called Chivhu and 141km from the capital Harare, Liebenberg serves a 12km radius of subsistence farming communities.
Erratic rainfall has failed to guarantee enough food supply for the district in the past 5 years leaving its farming population with no extra produce to sell (hence no disposable income). Again, the overall effect of such poverty ends up as a negative on children with girls being the most affected.
Girls either miss school because of unpaid fees or they cannot afford sanitary wear (one week per month). As a result, girls fail their final exams, which is a further step in widening the inequality between boys and girls, future women and men. One of the senior ladies at Liebenberg noted that failed girl school leavers end up taking prostitution in Chivhu town which leads to HIV or teenage pregnancies.

Summary Project Strategy and Delivery

Educated Horizon’s aim is to make sure that poor school girls in these two communities attend school every day just like the boys and pass their final examinations. By providing the much needed hygiene materials, we will be able to reduce unnecessary disruptions that these girls are facing.
We will source sanitary pads and soap from local suppliers and provide them to the selected 20 schools for the next three years. We will provide building material for one small brick incinerator (sanitary waste disposal unit) per school. Educated Horizon will also source sewing machines and fabric that will be used by students to make girls’ underwear and towels.
All 20 schools have elected senior lady teachers that act as mother figures at each respective school and are able to communicate highly confidential matters with girl students. Educated Horizon will work closely with these teachers in trying to achieve its mission of providing the much needed sanitary wear.

In addition, each school has ‘Home Economics’ teachers who teach either Fashion and Fabrics or Food and Nutrition as part of their academic curricular. These teachers are responsible for teaching girls how to tailor garments that make up part of sanitary wear kits. Educated horizon will help provide sewing machines and the necessary fabric to schools. 

Summary project requirements

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Project Managers

1. Lynia Gavi (Educated Horizon Chair and a former student  of one of the above communities) This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
2. Edith Gavi (Educated Horizon Secretary and former home economics businesswoman and trainer) This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
3. Tongai Mushangwe (Educated Horizon Field Manager and former teacher) This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Project Co-ordinators

1. Mrs Madi (Senior Lady Teacher at Libenburg Secondary School, Chivhu, Zimbabwe)
2. Mrs Magadza (Senior Lady Teacher at Assisi High School, Chivhu, Zimbawe)
3. Mrs Makamure (Senior Lady Teacher and Guzha Secondary Secondary School)