Kyempo: As Ghana joined the rest of the world to mark the 2025 World Menstrual Hygiene Day, the Hunger Project Ghana (THP-G) empowered over 200 girls at Kyempo in the Asante-Akim South Municipality with knowledge and resources on safe and hygienic menstruation. The girls, drawn from four schools within the community, were educated on proper handling and disposal of sanitary pads, best hygiene practices during menstruation, and the nutritional requirements essential after each menstrual cycle.
According to Ghana News Agency, resource persons from the Municipal Education Directorate, Municipal Health Directorate, and the Traditional Council were on hand to sensitise the girls on the importance of menstrual hygiene in relation to their development and overall well-being. Sanitary pads were distributed to all the girls who participated in the event to commemorate the day.
Menstrual Hygiene Day is observed annually on May 28 to raise awareness about the importance of good menstrual hygiene management for women and girls across the world. It aims to break the silence around menstruation and highlight the critical role of good hygiene in enabling women and girls to achieve their full potential. The global theme for this year’s celebration is, ‘Together for a Period-Friendly World.’
Mr. Solomon Amoakwa, Project Officer of The Hunger Project Ghana, Kyempo Epicenter, said the organisation, apart from its core mandate of helping to end hunger, also focused on women empowerment hence the need to support young girls to maintain proper hygiene. ‘As part of improving hygiene in the school environment, we have also supported all the schools within the catchment area of the epicenter with handwashing facilities,’ he stated.
He said his outfit was also supporting a school in the community with a modern eight-seater toilet facility with a changing room to provide a space for menstruating girls to change their pads comfortably while in school. Madam Rose Agyeiwaa Marfo, the Municipal Girls Education Officer, applauded The Hunger Project Ghana for putting together what she described as an impactful programme to highlight the importance of menstrual hygiene.
She said access to sanitary pads could be challenging sometimes for girls in rural communities, compelling some of them to adopt unhygienic methods to protect themselves during their monthly flows. Such practices, she noted, could lead to infections and stressed the need for deliberate policies to make sanitary pads accessible to every menstruating girl irrespective of their location.