Tackling Period Poverty to Enable Girls to Attend School - CARE ZIMBABWE
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Tackling Period Poverty to Enable Girls to Attend School

July 27, 2023

Many adolescent girls in Zimbabwe miss school due to period poverty. Period poverty refers to the consequences linked to an inability to afford sanitary products to assist with menstruation.

According to a study conducted in May 2022 in Zimbabwe, 72% of girls do not use sanitary products as they are unable to purchase them. A further 62% of girls tend to miss out on school every month due to a lack of sanitary wear. The highest percentage of those directly affected are girls from low-income families, especially in rural areas where cyclical droughts and flooding have affected communities’ way of life, thus putting them in a position where they cannot afford to purchase sanitary products for girls. This creates a recurring vicious cycle that not only affects the education of the girls but also their mental well-being as they are stigmatized. The stigma is sometimes felt even at home where parents do not let the girls go out when they are on their periods as they lack the proper sanitary wear.

To combat this, CARE International in Zimbabwe has set up 30 Community Pad Centres (CPCs) and mothers’ support groups. These centers have been established to help tackle reduce period poverty as the members make reusable pads for girls which enables them attend classes regularly. These CPCs were established in partnership with the Government of Zimbabwe through a 9-month project funded by the World Bank.

The fight against period poverty in Buhera District has shown to have an unexpected ally. The Kumboedza Group is being led by a man, Benjamin Mombeyarara, who is championing gender equality, and menstrual hygiene management in Buhera. He is actively involved in making pads for schoolgirls so that they do not have to miss school anymore.

Pauline Hurungud/CARE

In Zimbabwe, it is quite rare to see this, but Benjamin is breaking the silence on a discussion that most men shy away from having.

“Culture and tradition made it a taboo for men like me to be seen being part of a group. However, through the CPC, we were equipped with menstrual hygiene skills and now we know a man can also sew pads, and this has made life easier for our girl children. “I work with the women, and I am encouraging other men to join. There are male doctors who help women in hospitals, and I am simply just doing something similar,” Benjamin added.

 

Pauline Hurungudo/CARE

The project has improved access to menstrual hygiene management (MHM) products for 1,007 adolescent girls in 48 schools by distributing: bathing soaps, pants/underwear, non-re-usable, sanitary pads, sanitizer, face masks, face towels, and water purification tablets in Buhera District. The girls also received training on hygiene promotion, which included Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health (ASRH). School health coordinators were supported with the formation of school health clubs at their respective schools. Through such clubs, boys have also been inspired (with some even joining such clubs directly) to tackle the stigma of period shaming.

Through the combined effort of CARE, the World Bank, the Government of Zimbabwe, and the community, there has been an increase in school attendance by 15 percent from 29 to 44 percent. For the sustainability of the project, the trained CPC members train others on how to sew reusable sanitary pads for girls. This is to maintain the gains of improving regular school attendance.  With such achievements, girls in Buhera, are now a lot more confident to go to school and interact with others.