…3,500 girls have benefited since 2019
Concerned about the challenges of menstrual poverty among the girl child in Nigeria, the Cakasa Ebenezer Foundation (CEF) has donated reusable pads to 100 adolescent girls in Lagos State’s Education District 1.
Managing Director, Cakasa Nig. Company and Chairman, Cakasa Ebenezer Foundation (CEF), Engr. Philip Balami Yaro made the donation on Monday at the annual Ornaments of Grace and Virtue (OGAV) summer empowerment camp at Government Girls Senior College, Agege.
Each girl child was presented with a pack containing three pads that are reusable for one year.
The event, tagged ‘Empowerment Day – Health and Wellness for Adolescent Girls’, was themed ‘Ending menstrual poverty’ and it featured over 1,000 school girls within Lagos State.
Mr. Yaro, who was represented by CEF’s Executive Director, Mrs. Helen Egbe, said the foundation was honoured to be associated again with OGAV, which has been championing the cause of the girl child, holding regular summer empowerment day camps; this year, focusing on ‘ending menstrual poverty’.
He said: “Girl child empowerment especially among secondary school pupils aligns with two of CEF’s objects of Education and Empowerment and the UN Sustainable Development Goals 1, 3, 4 and 5 of zero poverty, good health and well-being, quality education, and gender equality respectively.
“The focus this year on ‘ending menstrual poverty’ is key to ending the perennial difficulty that the typical Nigerian child faces.
The chairman cited research which found that a lack of access to appropriate menstrual products can negatively affect a person’s mental health to the extent that most of such disadvantaged persons can sometimes slip into bouts of depression.
Yari said: “Many people living in menstrual poverty fall into this group. Such people have been reported to use rags, toilet paper, and, sometimes, children’s diapers. In some cases, people have been reported to use menstrual products that they are able to afford for longer than intended. “Using such alternative products has put individuals at higher risk of urogenital infections, which are infections of the urinary and genital systems. These infections include urinary tract infections and bacterial vaginosis.”
He explained that this was the basis of their support to OGAV.
“It is for this reason that Cakasa Ebenezer Foundation is supporting 100 adolescent girls with reusable pads in this year’s camp,” Yaro said.
Also speaking, Egbe explained that this was only the latest in a long list of contributions to the girl child’s welfare from the CEF, adding that about 5,000 girls in Lagos and Rivers State had been impacted; 3,500 so far in collaboration with OGAV in Lagos.
