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. According to South African Journal of Child Health, seven million girls in South Africa miss school each month due to lack of sanitary pads, which results in them missing 25% of learning during the school year. Women empowerment starts with empowering young girls since they are the women of tomorrow. Therefore, it is imperative to ensure that young girls do not miss school due to their menstrual cycle. Sanitary towel donations play a pivotal role in keeping girls in school and preventing them from missing out on lessons and further dropping out of school.
Please see the below press release for more information on how Vuma, as part of their CSI initiative donate to girls in need across various schools in the Tshwane region. To unpack this further, Mbalenhle Madira, who facilitates school-based CSI programmes for Vuma is available for interviews.
While access to menstrual hygiene products is widely considered and accepted as a basic human right, many young girls across South African schools still cannot afford sanitary products as and when they need them.
Surveys conducted by the IMenstruate Movement showed that 83% of girl learners lack access to proper sanitary products both at home and at school, forcing one in four girls to miss school monthly as a result.
Mbalenhle Madira, who facilitates school-based CSI programmes for fibre provider, Vuma, says that period poverty in South Africa is a crisis that needs more attention. “It’s a dignity issue, first and foremost – girls who are having to stay home because they’re scared to bleed through their clothing in public lack Menstrual Dignity, something that every woman, no matter where she comes from, deserves.
“In addition, without the proper products at their disposal, young girls are using unhygienic materials like rags and tissue paper to get them through their period, putting them at risk of bacterial infections,” says Madira.
Phuthanang Primary School and Soshanguve Secondary School in Pretoria are just two of the schools where girls struggle to access menstrual hygiene products. Each school received 250 pad packs this month as a result of a sanitary pad donation drive started by Vuma in response to its discovery of the underserved schools.
“Providing more South Africans with access to fast fibre connectivity remains our main goal, but it’s also important that we play our part to help these communities in other areas when it comes to a lack of much-needed access to resources, regardless of the nature of those resources. Our girls deserve better than this, and it’s vital that we all play our part to help where we can,” says Madir