Bethel Lasting Impressions Program - Keeping Girls in School

Globally, 52% of women and girls are of reproductive age – around 1.9 billion people. Yet, a massive taboo and stigma still surround the topic of menstruation, and it is often difficult for girls and women in many countries and regions to practice optimal menstrual hygiene (WHO). These women and girls will menstruate each month for between 2 to 7 days. 

In most parts of the world, menstruation remains taboo and is rarely talked about. Currently, cultural practices and taboos around menstruation impact negatively on the lives of girls and women and reinforce gender inequalities and exclusions. 

Lack of access to information on this subject makes matters worse especially for the adolescents who are in the transition stage from childhood to adulthood.   

A situation analysis study commissioned by the Ministry of Health (2016) as a step towards developing an MHM policy revealed that the median age for menarche in Kenya stands at 14.4years. Information about menstruation is received from mothers, 87.7%, and from teachers, 15.5%. However, while parents remain the primary source of information, they are mostly concerned with ensuring that their daughters avoid the child and teenage pregnancy. Minimal attention is given to menstrual health and hygiene with adolescent girls and boys reporting that it is shameful to discuss menstruation. The myths perpetuated by this silence and stigma result in shame and confusion, poor hygiene during the menstrual period, the incidence of urinary
tract and vaginal infections, absenteeism from school and work, and a sense of poor self-worth that persists long after the menstrual period. Almost half of Kenyan women and girls interviewed 2 believed that it was not correct to talk about or discuss menstruation and more than half believed that menstrual blood contained harmful substances.

Findings of a study done in Western Kenya revealed that WASH conditions in the majority of rural Kenyan primary schools are insufficient for the MHM needs of menstruating girls. It further stated that sub-optimal WASH conditions in schools may hinder girls’ ability to concentrate in class, attend school when menstruating, or at the worst drop out of school completely (Alexander, et al., 2014).

The aim of our Bethel Lasting Impressions Program is to solve problems associated with MHM which include and are not limited to:

1. Lack of information on MHM

2. Missing School due to periods

3. Addressing period pains

4. Shaming and embarrassment associated with menstruation that in some cases lead to school dropout. Sadly, in 2019 resulted a girl committed suicide after being shamed. 

Promoting menstrual hygiene management(MHM) is not only a sanitation matter; it is also an important step towards safeguarding the dignity, bodily integrity, and overall life opportunities of women and girls. 

Bethel Lasting Impressions Programme - BLIP App.

This was started in the year 2016. with the goal of ensuring Girls remain in school during their menstrual cycle when many cannot afford sanitary towels. So far we have reached 342 Schools, and 21,369 Girls, 11495 Boys in 27 counties in Kenya. Over the years the program has extended to Uganda -4103girls, Tanzania - 5600girls, and Ethiopia - targeting - 1000girls

Bethel Network comes in to address the gap of information to young girls and boys, through the provision of education on Life Skills, Menstrual Hygiene Management. We also provide menstrual hygiene kits including sanitary pads, panties, and a booklet with information on the areas of education.

The objective of the program is to build confidence amongst girls and ensure access to sanitary pads for needy girls in marginalized areas

Originally the program involves going physical in schools with mentors and give talks and register students during these sessions. While this has been successful the team can reach only a few schools at a time and that’s when in November 2020 we started the journey of putting the programme online for schools to register and have train selected teachers as mentors and enable the distribution of sanitary towels to students while mentoring them on life skills.

While this rollout is reaching schools with the internet, there are many that cannot be reached using this platform. This current phase of deployment involves allowing students in remote places to use an easily accessible USSD/SMS solution to register in the program and after verifying with their schools enable them to receive the sanitary towels while accessing information through SMS. The students can use their parents' feature phones and receive help on various topics covered in the mentorship programme. This way we will be able to cover more students across all populations.

We currently have an online e-learning platform to expand our reach to school-going girls pre-teens/teens by educating them on Puberty education, Life skills, and Menstrual Hygiene Management

Our solution seeks to help school-going boys and girls to register into the programme using USSD/SMS and enable the information to be used to assist the girls to get access to sanitary towels as well as give them medical advice on issues they may have especially on period pains.   

Over the years our program the success of our program has been attributed to the following:

1. Our commitment to transforming lives 

2. We have the approval and the goodwill of the ministry of education. 

3. Use of data systems - We conduct research to make a data-informed solution 

4. Engaging highly skilled nurses and mentors to reach out to the girls and  the boys in schools

5. We have good partnerships with the government, both National and the County level, different partners and we work closely with the locals to ensure a maximum positive impact on the intended beneficiaries 

6. We already have the e-learning platform done and also run the same workshops in schools. However, we have completed the design for extending services to those who might not have access to the internet and are in need. To do this the USSD/SMS solution will provide an interface for the boys and girls to register for the programme and school they attend. This will then be used as data for logistical planning in the distribution of sanitary towels and also serve as a platform to help the girls with any medical challenges they may have and be able to link them to medical facilities near them.

Our team lacks the funds to expand the programme to reach those in marginalized and remote areas that are in need of our services through our online platform. We seek funding to extend the e-learning platform with integrated logistics and advisory services with a pool of on-call mentors and clinicians.

The uniqueness of our program is in sustainability

We have an integrated program for both boys and girls on lifeskills, puberty education, and menstrual hygiene management.

We are the only ones who accompany our sanitary towels provision with education on Life skills and MHM. This is based on the feedback we get from the schools we target in our program.

We have gone further to offer the same education via an online platform called Bethel Lasting Impressions Program App –

Scaling the reach from our current annual reach of (teachers, boys, and girls)

Incorporate the use of USSD to reach out to more in remote areas that may not have access to the internet 

We have plans of scaling up by going beyond our territories (Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania) – To more counties in Kenya, and other countries. eg Ethiopia 

We have increased our reach from 12,304girls and 0 boys (2016) to 32,837girls and 11,495 boys by 2021 in Kenya

We increased our reach from 5 counties in Kenya to the current 27counties. 

We ventured into new territories. Uganda - 4,103girls and 1000boys and Tanzania 5,600girl.  

To improve and benchmark programs across the region, we conduct research that gives information and feedback from beneficiaries. Our work has been published twice by the The International Journal of Adolescence and Youth (Taylor and Francis Group) see the publication here

We collect data internally through our M&E tools – Nurses' pre and post questionnaires

Our supervisors do daily visits on the ground to ensure everything is done as per our workplans

Collecting real-time feedback, especially from teachers in our target schools

Continuously improved on our programs through the collection of feedback to give more insights 

Bethel Lasting Impressions Programme 

The goal of the program

The overall goal of the project is to reach out to more schoolgoing girls and boys as far as education and health are concerned. The content of the BLIP App will seek to address Life Skills, Puberty Education, Menstrual Hygiene Management. At the same time, the program will work with institutions to ensure that collective and concerted efforts are addressing adolescence-related problems.

Objectives of the program

The program will seek to achieve the following objectives:

1. To reduce absenteeism amongst girls

2. To improve the academic and extra-curricular performance

3. To enhance the pupils’ confidence, communication, and interpersonal skills

4. To improve the  transition from  primary level to  high school level

Key outputs

1. Two developers designed and customized the BLIP app

2. Thirteen-course units of the physical manual updated in the BLIP App

3. 10 office team, 55 teachers, 20 nurses, and our partners trained on how the app operates 

4. 20,000 pupils registered in the application

Activities

1. Work with developers in designing and customizing a solution in form of an APP 

2. Align the content of the app to that in the physical manual used in the in-class sessions

3. Training the office team, teachers, nurses and other stakeholders on how to use the app

4. Launch the application to the target audience

Impact 

• 20,000 educated on Life Skills, Puberty Education, and Menstrual Hygiene Management. 
• More boys and girls reached in comparison to those reached in the schools' program

• Performance reported having improved amongst the pupils reached

• Over 10,000 girls with accessed sanitary towels.
• Over 700 primary schools benefit from our personal hygiene and sexuality education program.
• Reported reduction of teen pregnancies
• Expected behavior change

We currently have a Web-based e-learning platform that enables schools to enroll their students in the programme and take them through a series of lessons to mentor and empower as well as provide access to learners to free sanitary towels. We are extending this to incorporate the USSD/SMS solution to reach out to those schools or girls that are in remote areas and have no access to the internet but have feature phones.

We work with people of all ages, Genders

We offer opportunities to all without descrimination of any kind

We target schools without discrimination on basis of religion, region/culture

We work with nurses from all the regions of our project

We are a non-profit making organization involved in impact-related programmes and social enterprise programmes targeting children, youth, and women with an aim of transforming communities

We partner with other stakeholders doing similar initiatives and where possible we do Cost-sharing

Matching grants – we look for people who can buy products then we match them with an equal grant of whatever

Every day we approach more potential partners

We have had instances where we contribute half of the donation. These are Bomet, Tharaka Nithi and Laikipia Counties