Don wants State to include sanitary towels in free education package

Monthly access to sanitary towels remains a challenge to many teen girls in the country.

Many of the affected teenagers are either in primary or secondary school. Lack of access either compels them to skip school during their menses, or use unhygienic materials.

The situation has existed throughout generations. Some girls have been tempted to exchange sex for sanitary towels with men, some much older. In the process, they either fall pregnant or contract sexually transmitted diseases, derailing their academic progress.

A university don and winner of the Koffi Annan Health Leadership Fellowship has proposed that sanitary towels be part of the free education package.

Dr Jackline Nyaberi of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology says the towels should be provided for free and on a regular basis to all girls in public schools.

"No girl should lack sanitary towels once she is of menstruation age," Dr Nyaberi, a specialist in public health said.

Education package

She wants the government to consider reviewing the free education package to accommodate the towels.

She spoke during a mentorship session at Maagonga Primary School, her alma mater, in Nyamira County. She also donated a four-month sanitary towels pack to teenage girls.

“Long gone are the days when it was normal for women and their daughters to use pieces of clothes and old blankets in place of sanitary pads," she said.

Dr Nyaberi who is in the first cohort of the Koffi Annan Health Leadership Fellowship, wants to become Africa's female icon in the betterment of other people's lives. Her plan is to empower communities to lead healthy lives.

She has one year to prove to the foundation that she is committed to serve humanity.

Dr Nyaberi and other women in the cohort will be paraded at a global platform at the expiry of the one year fellowship in Ethiopia next year.

Competitive selection

“I have embarked on my journey to become an iconic public health lender,” Dr Nyaberi said.

She spoke during a mentorship session at Maagonga Primary School, her alma mater, in Nyamira County. She also donated a four-month sanitary towels pack to the girls.

She won the one-year fellowship after a competitive selection process that attracted more than 600 applicants.

Twenty fellows were picked to participate in the initiative that brings together the African Union Commission (AUC) and Africa CDC.

The fellowship entails online learning and mentorship in-person learning sessions tenable at the Africa CDC in Ethiopia, and other leading health organizations across Africa.

It also seeks to model aspirational African public health leaders (fellows) in Africa.

It will help beneficiaries to acquire advanced skills and competencies needed to strategise, manage and lead public health programmes that will positively transform public health in Africa.

She said the mentorship campaign started two months ago with support from individuals who had heard her story, and contributed from as little as Sh50 and as much as Sh20,000.

"I was a pupil in this school and if I made it, these girls too can," Dr Nyaberi said.

She said the program will metamorphose into a foundation so as to fast track her dream. She intends to reach more than 3,600 girls during the one year fellowship.

Dr Nyaberi was in the company of Nyamira County Government officials including Dr Grace Nyamongo the County Executive Committee Member in charge of Gender and Social services and Rachel Okong'o, a director in the department.

"We should not ignore the boy child. Every child needs support to succeed," Dr Nyamongo said.

Koffi Annan was a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Secretary-General of the United Nations between 1997 and 2006. He was also the founding chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation, which seeks to mobilise political will to overcome threats to peace, development and human rights.

[email protected]