Bauchi State Government has been urged to, as a matter of urgency, construct safe corners in all Secondary Schools across the state for the use and safety of the Girl-child in order to keep her in school.
The call was made by the Executive Director of an NGO, Alwadata Lifeline Initiative, Rotarian Winifred Robbinson Yusuf, while speaking at the celebration of the 2023 International Day of the Girl-child held at Government Secondary School, Bayara, Bauchi, stressing that “It is their rights to have these safe corners in the schools.”
“We are calling on the government to create safe corners for the girls. It does not cost much to do that. We are doing a lot of collaboration, there is another NGO we are collaborating with to help us get this safe corners for them so that at least we can have a conducive environment for the girls to change their pads comfortably and privately. It is their right to have safe corners.
“For now, like in this school, I think there is just a toilet and it is for both boys and girls which is unacceptable. In a school like this, there is no safe corners for the girls, then, where we did before, there is even no toilet facilities,” she said.
“So, Rotary Club of Bauchi Central made a promise there, which they are still going to carryout, of creating a safe corners for the girls, a WASH facilities especially water which is very essential and soap and even teach them how to clean up when they change the pads and the need to wash their hands.”
According to her, washing hands does not only prevent infection, even diarrhea and other things, “those are the things we are doing, for now, emphasis is on the need for safe corners in the schools for the girls.”
Robinson Yusuf noted that, “Today is the International Day of the Girl-child and the theme for this year is ‘Digital Generation, Our Generation’. The aim of coming here is actually to lend the Girl-child a hand to live a meaningful life, especially the vulnerable ones among them.
“And how can girls actually be part of this digital generation if they are not in school? So, we are here to give them reusable sanitary pads to keep them fit. To allow them be in school to learn and become useful to themselves, their families, communities and society at large.”
Speaking further, the Executive Director of Alwadata added that “I don’t know if people are aware that a lot of these girls miss school at least 4 days every month during their monthly flow. So, what we are trying to do is to get these girls in schools throughout the term, no need misssig school just because of monthly flow. And we decided on reusable sanitary pads to alleviate their situations.”
“It is only to the vulnerable girls that we are giving. It can be used for a long time if well maintained and we are going to teach them how to maintain it and how to keep it properly. They can use it for as long as 3 years.
“We are not just giving them pads, we are also giving them undergarments to use with the pads so that these girls can be in school and can be part of this digital generation that is their generation.”
On the feedback from the previous exercise, she said the issue of having to buy pads every month has reduced due to the pads bank created by the organisation.
According to her, “The feedback is that, it has kept more of the girls in school unlike the issue we used to have before. Though it has not completely been eradicated, but it has reduced drastically. We know that there has been a positive impact.”
She then assured that, “It won’t just stop in Miri, in fact we want it to go round all the girl schools in Bauchi state. That is the idea we have and that is our vision.There is something in the offing, let me not divulge it now.”
“For now, we are giving 80 girls, each one has 3 reusable sanitary pads so that they can easily change pads within the maximum of 6 hours interval. We are targeting not fewer than 3000 girls in the first phase. Already, that’s our new target, already we have given out over 1000 pads,” She said.
“We are going beyond just pads, we are also looking at the WASH facilities, because the girls need a safe place where they can change these pads comfortably and in private, safely and we are also telling them to be tidy.”
. TheWitness
