How an Innovative Communications Model is Enhancing Menstrual Health Management in Bauchi, Nigeria

be artsy's Rato Baltin project uses culturally relevant education, menstrual kit distribution, and engages religious leaders to challenge discriminatory practices against those who menstruate. Since launching in 2017, the group has reached 80,000 people and distributed over 5,500 menstrual cups, while simultaneously helping shift perspectives around menstruating.

Brencare Foundation’s Safe Space Project meets once a week within local schools to provide menstrual health, hygiene, sexual and gender-based violence education to girls in need. So far, the Foundation has reached about 5,000 women and girls across several communities with its education efforts.

To reduce unplanned pregnancies, Delaware "embarked on an ambitious experiment" that worked to eliminate barriers that prevented women from pursuing alternative forms of birth control, such as cost and convenience. After two years, rates of unplanned pregnancies decreased by 15 percent.

The Inspire Women, Men and Children (IWMC) youth empowerment group is teaching women and young girls how to construct reusable sanitary pads in an effort to address period poverty and prevent them from missing school and work during menstruation. The group follows up with students to ensure they’ve properly constructed pads with safe materials and also further educates teachers on how to provide support to students who menstruate.

Since 2012, the government has required schools from primary to university to create a Girl’s Room, stocked with pads, pain medicine, a bed, soap and water for girls to seek refuge in during their menstrual cycles, in an effort to address the issue of period poverty. By the end of 2021, 2,046 primary schools across the country had established a room for girls, representing 55.4% of all primary schools in the country. Schools with a Girl’s Room have also reported reduced rates of absenteeism and dropouts.

A Nigeria-based NGO is setting out to address period poverty by providing those in need with reusable sanitary napkins and also teaching them how to make the products themselves, all while educating them on menstrual hygiene and working to reduce the stigma surrounding periods.

She Deserves Uganda provides menstrual hygiene education to young girls and an organic aromatherapy solution to pain from period cramps they call The Cramp Relief Droppers, as a safer and more affordable alternative to traditional over-the-counter painkillers. The group has provided menstrual health education to over 10,000 girls across 50 schools and has distributed over 1,540 units of The Cramp Relief Droppers.

Some people who experience debilitating periods are using hormone therapy as a means to manage or suppress menstruation. These norethisterone tablets can be seen as a tool for reproductive freedom, allowing people to have some control over when and how their body menstruates.

The Pad-A-Girl project by the Citizen Participation Advancement and Awareness Initiative (CPAAI) helps those experiencing period poverty, particularly girls in primary and secondary schools and underprivileged women. CPAAI offers washable pads that are good for five years, installed pad banks in area schools and taught the women and girls how to create washable pads themselves. The program launched in 2020 and has since helped more than 7,000 women and girls across 25 schools and communities.

Girls&More educates girls on menstruation, puberty and menstrual hygiene. The group travels to schools and throughout rural communities to talk to girls and provide them with sanitary pads and other resources they may struggle to access.