Promoting menstrual health education for rural girl child

The girl child education is more challenged by socio-economic as well as cultural barriers than their boys’ counterpart in access to quality and equitable education delivery outcomes in the Northern part of Ghana. Poor households, for instance, tend to educate their boys at the expense of girls partly due to perceived high direct cost of schooling for the girl child and ignorance about the ability of the girl child to perform well in school. Moreover, girl’s right to quality education is been hindered by girls monthly menstruation. This causes absenteeism and lateness to school. It’s widen the gap of inequalities between boys and girls in educational performance and outcomes. For instance, the 2020 BECE analysis in the proposed areas indicates that out of 2,714 registered female candidates in Tamale metro only 30.3% passed with 3 core subjects whilst Sagnarigu and Savelugu Municipalities registered 2,543 and 564 female candidates but only 40.3% and 32.8% passed with 3 core subjects respectively (GES REG’L OFFICE N/R, 2020).

FoRD-GHANA is proposing to implement a project entitled; Promoting Menstrual Health Education (ProMEd) project in 3 MMDAs in Northern region. The proposed  project is estimated to be implemented within 5 years duration. The goal of the project is to contribute to increase in access to contact hours and improve educational outcomes of the girl child through menstrual health education with the use of mobile phone technology to provide text messages to school girls with phones and parents with mobile phones in 3 MMDAs in Northern Region.

The proposed project Promoting Menstrual Health Education (ProMEd) project intend to equip school children in the project area especially girls with menstrual health education. Girls will be train to develop a chart or menstrual cycle record cards for themselves. This will help them track and monitor their menstrual cycles to prevent teenage pregnancy among school children. This will increase their attendance, performance, completion and even graduation to help bridge the gap of gender inequality between their male and female students. 

The organization will also consolidate the gains in its COVID-19 project in this proposed project. The project will seek to assess and identify students who got pregnant during COVID -19 crisis and instituted measures to complement government efforts and policy directives of returning nursing mothers to school after given birth.

  The project will educate girls on an innovative way to manage their periods. A menstrual cycle record chart will be develop and design to students girls between the age of 11 years to 18 year and girls student from the upper primary ( Basic 4 to Basic 9) girls in basic schools to track  their menstrual cycle properly within the project location

The organization have seven (7) management board of directors with a chairperson that oversee and provide strategic directions to the management team towards the attainment of the organizational goals. The organization has unitary and independent functioning management board of directors that lead and control the organization. The board comprises directors with diverse backgrounds, skills and experience.

The current staff strength of the organization stands at Seven (7) and over 20 volunteer staff and ten (11) part – time workers. The permanent staff is made of five (5) males and two (2) females. The organization also works with part – time staff, volunteers, contract staff and consultants from time to time. 

The management team headed by the Programmes Manager implement annual and strategic plan and report to the board for review and approval of management and financial issues. The programmes manager sees to the day –to – day management and running of the organization. The head is a signatory to the organizational accounts and authorize all transactions for the finance officer to make payment.

The goal of the project is to contribute to increase in access to contact hours and improve educational outcomes of the girl child through menstrual health education with the use of mobile phone technology to provide text messages to school girls with phones and parents with mobile phones in 3 MMDAs in Northern Region. The interrelated objectives for the project are; 1)To promote menstrual health education in 15 basic schools and 15 communities from 3 MMDAs in Northern region; 2) To increase knowledge and skills of female students on menstrual cycle tracking and monitoring and 3) To empower women and girls to be equipped and understand the relationship between mensuration and anemia. To achieve the above objective the following planned activities will be implemented; 1) Conduct of community mobilization and engagement meeting; 2) Project launch in 3 MMDAs; 3) conduct baseline/midline and end line surveys; 4) Embark awareness creation for female students in basic schools on menstrual cycle education and monitoring; 5) community sensitization and demonstration; 6) Organize training for SHEP coordinator students, Health and head teachers and health workers on menstrual education; 7) Organize training for field officers for survey data collection; 8) Formation and building capacity of leaders of girls clubs to enable pass right information on mensuration to students; 9) Conduct quarterly information sharing sessions and conduct quarterly project monitoring and evaluation.

The available data from the communication industries shows that the coverage of mobile phone useage is about 98% in Ghana. The solution will take advantage of this and developed a technological system that target the project beneficiaries with phones and the parents of those who do not have phones to the system. The system with design the menstrual calender for and test messages will be sending to the beneficiaries on monthly basis to be draw the attention to their period to prevent school lateness and absenteeism and improve learning outcomes of the girl child in schools

The goal of the project is to contribute to increase in access to contact hours and improve educational outcomes of the girl child through menstrual health education in 3 MMDAs in Northern Region. The interrelated objectives for the project are; 1)To promote menstrual health education in 15 basic schools and 15 communities from 3 MMDAs in Northern region; 2) To increase knowledge and skills of female students on menstrual cycle tracking and monitoring and 3) To empower women and girls to be equipped and understand the relationship between mensuration and anemia. To achieve the above objective the following planned activities will be implemented; 1) Conduct of community mobilization and engagement meeting; 2) Project launch in 3 MMDAs; 3) conduct baseline/midline and end line surveys; 4) Embark awareness creation for female students in basic schools on menstrual cycle education and monitoring; 5) community sensitization and demonstration; 6) Organize training for SHEP coordinator students, Health and head teachers and health workers on menstrual education; 7) Organize training for field officers for survey data collection; 8) Formation and building capacity of leaders of girls clubs to enable pass right information on mensuration to students; 9) Conduct quarterly information sharing sessions and conduct quarterly project monitoring and evaluation

Project impacts in the next five years

• 70% of female students  from the B4 to B9 understand their menstrual cycle and track it occurrence on monthly basis
• Enhances the knowledge and skills of female students on menstrual cycle tracking and monitoring
• Female students attendance to school increased at least by 50%
• Improved the performance of female students by 25% 

The organization has M&E officer who lead the monitoring and evaluation team. The project monitoring will use a jointly developed M&E plan by FoRD-Ghana and its funders to monitor the impact of the project. The project funders will play part in monitoring the outcomes of the project and evaluate it to measure the impact of the project on the beneficiaries’ municipalities and the communities

• 70% of female students  from the B4 to B9 understand their menstrual cycle and track it occurrence on monthly basis
• Enhances the knowledge and skills of female students on menstrual cycle tracking and monitoring
• Female students attendance to school increased at least by 50%
• Improved the performance of female students by 25% 

The solution will  developed a technological system that target the project beneficiaries with phones and the parents of those who do not have phones to the system. The system with design the menstrual calendar for  girls and test messages will be sending to the beneficiaries on monthly basis to be draw the attention to their menstrual period to prevent them from lateness and absenteeism to school and improve learning outcomes of the girl child in schools

The project will educate girls on an innovative way to manage their periods. These girls are more vulnerable as a result of their menstrual cycle. The solution will also aim at bridging the gab between boys and girls by ensuring equity in accessing quality educational outcomes by all.  A menstrual cycle record chart will be develop and design to students girls between the age of 11 years to 18 year and girls student from the upper primary ( Basic 4 to Basic 9) girls in basic schools to track  their menstrual cycle properly within the project location. 

The Foundation for Research and Development (FoRD-GHANA) is a grassroots development - oriented Non – Governmental Organization (NGO) and not - for- profit making organization. It was established in 2008 and started working as a waste management and Farmer Based Organization (FBO) with emphasis on promoting plastic waste management and the production of fingerlings to promote aquaculture development in the Northern Region

The organization is not - for - profit making organization, so our business model is to provide service to school children especially to the girl child to improve learning outcomes and opportunities.

The organization will continue to raised funds through sustained donations and grants by writting project proposals to donors and philantropic individuals and organizations both our country and outside the shores of the country, Ghana.

S/N   Name of Project        NAME OF FUNDERS                     AMOUNT Ghc

1.   ProBESPCoD)” Project WUZDA/AFG Ghana, DIFAM FUNDING  29,145.00

2.   CEsMASPRD Project     WUZDA/AFG Ghana, DIFAM FUNDING   6,790.00

3.  Child monitoring Project World Vision International Ghana     3,500.00

4.  WASH project             Community Empowerment Org (CEO)  10,000.00

5   SAPIP project             JUNAR'S ENTERPRISE FARMS (JEF)        15,000.00