WaterAid Ghana marks Menstrual Hygiene Day

WaterAid Ghana (WAG) has commemorated this year's Menstrual Hygiene Day with a call on women to patronize reusable pads.

The pads are manufactured locally by Dizindani women's group in Akania in the Kassena Nankana West District after WaterAid assisted to train them.

The commemoration was part of efforts to create awareness on challenges that millions of women and girls face during their periods of menstruation.

Speaking at the event, Madam Seyram Ama Asimah, programme officer for WaterAid Ghana, said globally, about 300 million women and girls menstruate each day and out of this number one-third of these women do not have access to proper toilet facility to freshen up.

Madam Asimah indicated that to address these problems, WAG had built institutional latrines with separate toilets for boys and girls to ensure that the girls have changing rooms to give them privacy to change their used menstrual pads during menstruation.

She disclosed that WaterAid Ghana had also trained the Dizindani women's group to manufacture and use reusable menstrual pads to help reduce the financial cost of buying disposable menstrual pads every month and also to serve as a source of extra income for the group.

WaterAid is a non-profit organization working in 34 countries to change the lives of the poor and most marginalized people by providing clean water, decent toilets and encouraging good hygiene for all class of people everywhere within a generation.

Madam Juliana Anam-erime, Deputy Director of Health Service for the Kassena-Nankana West District, said in order to combat the health challenges related to menstruation, the Ghana Health Service often gave drugs to women and girls during their menstrual periods in order to prevent anemia deficiency in them. Madam Anam-erime called on women and girls to maintain personal hygiene during menstruation in order to avoid being infected with diseases.

She encouraged women to patronize the reusable menstrual pads and described it as more hygienic, less expensive and can easily be disposed off after three years.