Girls' Health & Social Empowerment Initiative

This comprehensive girls’ health maintenance and education initiative works through local primary schools to improve school attendance and provide essential health information and structural support.   

The program engages the participation of local teachers and school communities through organized Girls Clubs, where teenage girls grades 4-8 learn and share during weekly meetings.

To improve sanitation and promote health maintenance at partner schools, the program constructs gender-sensitive latrines with hand washing facilities.  The program also provides adolescent girls with Dignity Kits containing underwear and locally made reusable sanitary napkins to help girls manage monthly periods and stay in school.

The purpose of this program is to give girls the basic information and tools for healthy living and social empowerment.

How Our Partnership Makes a Difference

Lacking money for panties and sanitary pads, adolescent girls stay home during their menstrual periods.  Falling behind in their school work, girls feel discouraged and soon drop out of school.  More than 70% of the region's girls do not finish grade eight.

Outside of school's environment, girls are cut off from receiving critical health and AIDS education and are pressured for early marriage.  AIDS prevalence among girls in this district is 25%, compared to the national average of 6.7%.

To help girls stay in school, a group of village widows, the 'Voice of the Youth,' work at treadle sewing machines producing inexpensive, re-usable sanitary pads. These pads, together with two innerwear, comprise a "Dignity Kit" and supply a girl's personal needs for one year.  

Lack of privacy from poor latrine facilities equally discourages girls' attendance. Shared facilities and broken doors fail to protect a girl's privacy. To avoid humiliation, adolescent avoid coming to school during their periods. The effect of this gender-based barrier shows in regional testing, where girls rank 15% lower than boys.

Our KSHP Girls' Health & Social Empowerment initiative is a framework for educating and empowering girls by providing informational and material support.

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