Schools in Kiambu have welcomed the distribution of sanitary towels to be conducted by county woman representatives through National Government Affirmative Action Fund (NGAAF) saying that the programme will now run efficiently since it will be handled by an entity who understands menstrual health.
According to Hannah Murugi, Benson Njau Primary School head teacher speaking on Monday, June 3 during the distribution of sanitary towels to the school said that menstrual health has affected girls’ performance since in the last three years they have not been receiving sanitary pads.
“We have been given sanitary towels for the number of girls in our school. Earlier the sanitary pads were not enough hence some girls could not get them,” Murugi said.
She said that lack of consistency in distribution of the sanitary pads every month has affected the girl child as they often skip class.
“You will see some girl child strapping their sweaters around their waist simply because they did not have a tampon and probably they have stained their dresses. This has led to them skipping class or skipping school,” she said.
She said that as school heads they are confident that the distribution of the sanitary towels will be consistent and accountable since they will be picked from the containers where school exams were being dispatched from.
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“The Ministry of Education has a lot of work cut out for them which includes distribution of many materials to schools. This could have been a major challenge where consistency of distributing sanitary towels was not efficient earlier. Now the programme is being handled by ministry of gender we have faith that girls will be getting their sanitary pads monthly without fail,” she said.
“Some boys do not have inner wear and it is a challenge for them especially if their school shorts get torn or worn out which becomes embarrassing for them and they opt to skip class.”
Kiambu Woman Representative Ann Wamuratha while distributing the sanitary towels in the school said that the women representatives in all 47 counties had a meeting with President William Ruto where he agreed that the sanitary towels programme be moved from the MoE and be envisaged in the Gender Ministry so that the women leaders can ensure the programme runs smoothly and girls get to be given the sanitary pads every month.
“We will ensure as women representatives that there is no month that our school going girls get their sanitary towels. In about four years sanitary towels were not being distributed to our girls and we had to seek the President for assistance,” she said.
“I run an initiative called “Mama Boys Mashinani” which addresses boy child issues and it is a high time all leaders work together and initiate programs that are geared towards helping the boy child so that they may not feel left out.”
She however said that menstrual health affects the female gender where the government should zero rate tax for sanitary towels so that every woman can be able to afford the towels.
By Felix Wanderi
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