By: Mustapha Bello May 29, 2020 01;17pm
His Marvellous Grace Support Foundation (HMGSF) marked thisMenstrual Hygiene Day in grand style by Zoom meeting with speaker Ngozi juba Project Director of vision spring Initiative educated us on the topic. She said menstrual Hygiene is important and we need to tackle the stigma and discrimination with menstruation.
The international day set aside by the World Health Organisation is every 28th day of May, to annually raise awareness for and highlight the importance of good and healthy menstrual hygiene management (MHM). This initiative was initiated by the German-based NGO WASH United in 2014 and 28th May was selected to acknowledge that 28 days is the average length of the menstrual cycle. The Menstrual Hygiene Day (MHD), also called MH Day aims to educate, orientate, equip and benefit women and girls worldwide with the right education, knowledge and medical culture of an healthy menstrual hygiene.
MHD creates an occasion for sensitising, publicizing and sharing relevant information and materials to the women and girls through organized campaigns, awareness talks, public outreaches, community dialogues and so on. The day is usually not completed without discussing the types of menstrual hygiene materials to be used during the monthly blood flow and advocacy for the integration of menstrual hygiene management into global, national and local policies and programmes.
It's in this vein and spirit of celebration of MHD that, His Marvellous Grace Support Foundation, a community-based NGO in Ikorodu, Lagos State, joined the rest of the world to celebrate and reiterate the importance of MHD and the values embedded in it. The foundation made it a day.
Ngozi Juba said we stand for a world where the female folks can access menstrual hygiene products and safe places to manage their period with full confidence and free of shame. She further emphasized on the role of boy child and men in menstruation. Ngozi Juba said menstruation is a natural phenomenon that happens to girls as is natural for women to give birth to children. She spoke that some girls don’t have access to clean water and menstrual pads which is happening to girls and women in IDPs. She explained on the disposal method the way their sanitary pads should be discarded. One of the myths of menstruation is Sex cures menstruation pain which our girls believed but she said it was a blood lie. She said we have seen women that get pregnant during menstruation. Monthers find it difficult to explain about the sexual organ to their children because they are shy.
Some of the participants contributed to the topics.
Mrs Foluke Ademokun used her life experience and said this is biological and sociological. Biologists say we see with our eyes and biologists said when you get to puberty you menstruate. She said is all about education and empowerment.
Sylvia Nneka said some mothers and sisters are still backward so Awareness needed urgently especially the illiterate ones.
Favour ojo-omoniyi said is very important we penetrate their parents also by having seminars with them so that when they get back home they make use of it.
Adeleke success said every parent must teach their children earlier and take the awareness to schools immediately after the lock down.
Micheal Adesola said all hands on deck concerning this because every girl must be able to have access to sanitary pad.
Foluke Ademokun said women should advocate on the removal of Vat on the products like sanitary towel to demystify monthly period because some of us would have used toilet rolls when we were in secondary school.
Oluwadamisi Tayoladega said it is the responsibility of all of us and take what we have learnt to our communities.
Ngozi Juba stressed the relationship between menstruation and cleanliness. She said to have a free flow of blood, less complicated menstrual cycle and odorless blood flow, one needs to be exceptionally clean and hygienic in nature. She said she would have demonstrated how menstrual pads are fixed.
In Oluwadamisi awakening calls, orientated that, puberty is an offshoot of menstruation. She said, menstruation gives way to being a potential mother in the future and that it signals the beginning of total womanhood. She went even further to admonition to imbibe positive attitudes about menstruation, that it doesn't stop girls from being great and achieving their set goals in life. She also stressed the need for girls not to scared of sighting menstruation at inception, but rather cherish it, and see it as a call to eschew all forms of immorality that can lead to unwanted pregnancy, abortion, sexual blackmailing, untimely death among other vices.
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