Women Department and WASH Club Program Report

Ling to the Projekct: Punchliberia Date: July 24,2019 / written by: Laryee A. Sannor, Chief OPS BTFS LMT

Theme: My Body, My Health, My Period

The mandate of our Program is to give information to young people, especially girls in our communities that will help them to make healthy decisions for themselves and their families. On this project, we worked with about thirty-eight (38) young girls from the surrounding communities. The overall goal of our project was to help young girls make good decisions about their health. Young girls in our communities are at risk of dropping at of school due to a lot of factors amongst which are teenaged pregnancy and the effect of unprepared menstrual period. Most young girls do not have an understanding of their menstrual period and how to properly manage it. This project was needed in our communities as more and more young girls are being exposed to teen aged pregnancy and early school dropped-out. Our target audience is young girls between the ages of 12 and 18. Our activities for this project is: Have a program that aims to improve menstrual health education for adolescent female in the SD Cooper communities. A one-day program in which females will understand their circle and how to manage it well and also reduce the rate of teenage pregnancy and improving school achievement for adolescent female. This program utilizes a modified version of menstrual hygiene and puberty for adolescent’s female. At our program, we had a full section with the girls which was divided into two phases. Phase 1This was the educative section where the girls were taught about the basics of the female’s body from small to puberty. They listened keenly as Mrs. Oretha Slogan demonstrated explicitly the female body and the how they perform during their early stages of puberty. The girls were given note books and pen to take down the important point as Mrs. Slogan continues with the lectures. At some point, Mrs. Slogan would stop and ask the girls questions that they would answer in return. This was an interactive section and it helped us with the girls being comfortable to talk about their challenges and how they can be met with. Some of the girls talked about their challenges while having their period and Mrs. Slogan was always quite knowledgeable of the questions and recommended some alternate to their inquiries. Phase 2After about two hours of the first section, the girls were given some lunch and we headed to the second section where the women along with Mrs. Slogan divided sanitary Pad among the girls and taught them how to used it. There was an illustration using a doll to show the girls how to use the pad and mostly importantly how to disposed of it. In this section, there were also the question and answer part where the girls would asked specially question and would get an answer from Mrs. Slogan. After our picture sections, we randomly picked five girls to interview them about the program. Among them were,

• Louise Kemokai who is a seventeen-year-old and have a child. In the interview we asked Louise about the program and she said it was very useful for her and that she learned a lot from the program. We, with respect asked Louise to tell us about her experiences as a teen mother and all she said was, `If I could have had this program before my pregnancy, I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant at this age`.
• Mercy Forkpa an eighteen-year-old young girl with her parent and two siblings. She told us about her dropping out of school once because she had trouble managing her menstrual period. She went on saying because of the program and how much she has learned; she wouldn’t have to miss a day out of school because of her period.
• Sarafina L. Dennis a sixteen-year-old girl living in the nearby community. Sarafina told us about some important things she learned during the program. She told us the one particular lesson she learned which was how young girls should take care of themselves properly. Sarafina outlined some of the points from Mrs. Slogan that were useful to her and they include; taking care of yourself properly and how to clean yourself safely.
• Amelia N. Togba a sixteen-year-old girl living with a single mother. Amelia told us that one of the important lessons she learned from the program was to change her pad two to three time daily when having her period. When asked why, she said doing this will not only save you from public embarrassment but also from health problems.
• Blessing Saye is a fourteen-year-old girl living with her aunt and two siblings. Blessing was our most important interviewee because of her story. For girls like Blessing, this program was not just an ordinary program, for her it was a new beginning. Blessing told us about her challenges as a child and how this program was the first time she heard and knew about sanitary pad. When asked what she used when having her period, Blessing with tears in her eyes told us about the old clothe she would cut and use during her period. Blessing went on saying she was afraid of all the times she had used this clothe because of what she was taught today. Currently Blessing is among the many girls in our communities who do not have the basic access to safe and good personal hygiene. Blessing is currently not in school and has never been to school before in her life. Girls like Blessing and Louise our first interviewee and many more are the reason a program like this should be given more attention and help to reach-out to and help these girls reach a better future.

Project Name: My Body, My Period, My Health
Project Objective: Teaching girls to properly manage their Circle Improvement in the Teen-Age Pregnancy rate in our communities Increasing Adolescent Female in School
Resources	Activities	Done by	Results	Remarks
Certified Nurse and Health Counsellor	Teaching the girls about their body and how they can properly manage their menstrual cycle	Mrs. Oretha Slogan	The girls, after this activity acquired more knowledge about their personally Hygiene and can demonstrate what they have learned.	After the program, some random girls were interviewed and they admitted that the section had taught them things that they did not know and it was very good for them
BTFS Staff Women Dept	Sharing of sanitary pad and teaching the girls how to use them with an illustration using a doll.	Mrs. Oretha Slogan and some of the BTFS Female Staff.	For some of the girls who have never used a pad before this was very useful and for other girls, they learned most importantly how to properly dispose of their used pad.	There were some of the girls who have never used this pad before so they had lots of questions about it and they were answered by our staff and Mrs. Slogan.

In the past few years young girls had little or no idea about their personally hygiene and had a lot of problem especially during their menstrual period. After this program, we can start to look forward to some changes in the girls when it comes to managing their personal health and relating to their parents about some sudden changes in their biology. Youth especially young girls need good information appropriate to our culture and geography about the personal hygiene and the mechanism involved with the management of these activities and how to do them safely. Young girls also need to have a better understand the body as it changes and not to be afraid of it. With this, the women department of the Bowier Trust Foundation Switzerland LMT, along with other partnering institutions such as; Caver Clinic, Benson Hospital and the ICA school are going to engage into a health education initiative that will help the schools we are working in including health education into their next year curriculum. We are going to plan out-door programs as well as in-door schools’ activities that will promote our health education agenda and goals of reaching out to the young girls of our communities. This will be a joint program that will include nurses from the hospital, educators and teachers, forming a unique and active team to promote heath education to both girls and boys in high school. Acknowledgments: Big thanks goes to Madam Myrtle Bowier, BTFS Head Woman Department and her Team for organizing this important session and but especially to our “Health-Ambassador”, Madam Oretha Slocum.