GIVE OUT A PAD, SAVE A GIRL CHILD

Ending period poverty, menstrual stigma, menstrual shame and menstrual taboos for the vulnerable girls, women, female inmates and female genders with disabilities.

Taking care of oneself during menstruation is as important as taking care of one’s day to day activities. A little negligence in menstrual hygiene management can cause your body grievous harm, and you may also act as an instrument for the spread of infection to others.
Taking about menstruation is a taboo in most societies, and this contributes to the ignorance and illiteracy on menstrual hygiene management. Using old clothes and other traditional unsafe methods to deal with menstruation hampers mobility and day to day activity of women. The result is that they have to miss out on work, schools as well as other commitment. Women are forbidden to bath or cleanse themselves properly during these days, which increase the threat posed to their health due to lack of menstrual hygiene. Furthermore, they also feel scared to go out to schools or work if being pad handicapped. 
Women are forced to use unsafe means of collecting menstrual waste, which is mostly contaminated. Clothes used as sanitary napkins are often washed without detergents and dried indoors, out of shame and fear of superstitions related to menstruation, That does not mean that women who use commercially available sanitary napkins are safe from risks of poor menstrual hygiene. Unsafe use of commercial sanitary napkins can result in serious forms of infections like Toxic Shock Syndrome and Vaginitis.
 This project will however, help propagate the following;
1. Reduced Risk of Urinary Tract Infections:
Using damp and dirty menstrual clothes or using a sanitary napkin for longer than 4 hours can act as a perfect environment for growth and multiplication of harmful bacteria and yeasts. Microbes like Candida albicans, Staphylococcus aureus, E.coli, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa grow easily in the humid environment provided by prolonged use of unhygienic absorbents or sanitary napkins.
These bacteria can invade your urinary tract including urethra and urinary bladder, resulting in painful urination, lower abdominal pain, back pain, and fever. These complications can be easily avoided by using hygienic sanitary napkins for periods.

2. Reduced Incidents of Rashes in Genitals:
Abrasion, allergy and prolonged wetness can injure the external genitalia and
cause rashes during menstruation. If sanitary pads are not changed frequently, vaginal skin may get infected with bacteria or fungus resulting in painful rashes.
3. Ensuring Good Reproductive Health:
Unhygienic absorbents or improper hygiene during periods can result in
Reproductive Tract Infection. RTIs can result in reproductive health morbidities since bacteria responsible for these infections can invade the mucosal layer of the reproductive tract and cause serious damage to uterine wall, ovaries and fallopian tubes. Vaginitis and abnormal vaginal discharge are preliminary symptoms of severe RTI.
Majority of women who used unhygienic methods to collect menstrual blood in India have greater chances to suffer from RTI and vaginal discharge. Awareness and access to affordable sanitary napkins for periods can prevent reproductive complications due to RTI.
4. The provision of menstruation pads will help eradicate girl school dropout and bad academic performances due to being absence in classes whenever the menstrual flow is on.

Menstruation and menstrual practices still face many social, cultural and religious restrictions which are barriers in the part of menstrual hygiene management. In many parts of the country especially in rural areas, girls are not prepared and aware about menstruation, so they face many challenges at home, schools and work places. 
While reviewing literature, we found that inaccurate knowledge about menstruation is a great hindrance in the part of personal and menstrual hygiene management. Girls and women have very little or no knowledge about reproductive tract infections caused due to ignorance of personal hygiene during menstruation time. 
In rural areas, women do not have access to sanitary products or they know little about the types and method of using them or are unable to afford such products due to high cost. As a result, they mostly rely on reusable cloth pads which they wash and use again. Observing, menstruation is not only a problem with girls in schools but also women and girls in prisons. After doing a prison monitoring exercise with the Idah prison in Kogi State, one thing that came out clear was that women and girls in the prison did not have access to sanitary pads. We equally discovered that the facilities in the prisons were not friendly to the women and the girls.
Similarly, women manage menstruation differently when they are at home or outside the home. Often times, they dispose the used menstrual products in domestic waste bin or public toilets. Some flush them in the toilets without knowing the consequences of choking. 
These problems have made Nicholasmotivates Initiative call for:
1. The Improvement of Sanitation facilities.
2. Routine distribution of sanitary pads in public facilities like schools, prisons, rural communities and shelters. 
3. Sensitization of the male gender on menstrual inequality, menstrual shame and menstrual taboos.

The target audiences for the “give out a pad, save a girl child” campaign project  are;

• Young girls.
• Women in rural communities.
• Prisoners and schools.
• Girls and women’s with disabilities.

The strategy for the execution of the give out a pad, save a girl child campaign project are as follows:
• Monthly distributions of pads through peer groups, clubs and associations.
• Routine sanitization and awareness programs through chats, social network, talk shows, seminars and workshops on self care and hygiene, tips on how to relate, manage report issues of abuse and domestic violence.
N:B, this we seek to achieve through the creation of pad banks, cell units (peer groups) within communities, schools, prisons and centers for disabilities (IDP camps)

The truth is, in Nigeria sanitary pads costs an average of 450naira per pack, while most families live below the poverty threshold of 500 naira per day. The high cost of sanitary pads in nigeria and africa have made them inaccessible for vulnerable poor girls, women, female inmates and female genders with disabilities. In some situations, girls face sexual abuse in their quest for money to buy sanitary pads and menstrual products. Menstruation is a dream killer for most girls, as they unable to attend school during menstruation.

On the other hand, those who cannot afford a good menstrual pad, rely on old rags, tissues, foams, leaf and newspapers as alternatives. There is no denying the detrimental health impacts faced by poor girls, women, female inmates and female genders with disabilities due to these unhygienic practices.
THE GIVE OUT A PAD, SAVE A GIRL CHILD CAMPAIGN PROJECT which is facilitated by a committed, spirited, dedicated, passionate and experience humanitarian aid workers and volunteers aims to curb this ugly and ill trend hence the dignity and confidence of the girl child, women, female inmates and female genders with disabilities gets reinforced to be proud of their menstrual cycle.

The GIVE OUT A PAD, SAVE A GIRL CHILD campaign project is presently spread across 6 states in nigeria recording a sum total of 23850 beneficiaries spread across 17 rural communities, 6 government girls college, 4 prisons houses and 3 centers for disabilities/ IDP camp.

Hence this is to validate the unprecedented impact the campaign project has recorded over the past 5 years since inception.

Through our campaign project “GIVE OUT A PAD, SAVE A GIRL CHILD” we passionately strive to eradicate period poverty, menstrual stigma, menstrual shame and menstrual taboos for the vulnerable girls, women, female inmates and female genders with disabilities and to be an organization that continually respond to the changing social realities through the development and application of menstrual hygiene management towards development of sustainable society that promote and protect the integrity of the average girl child regards managing her menstrual cycles.

According to the 2022 UNESCO puberty education and menstrual hygiene management report, one in ten girls in sub-saharan Africa misses school during their menstrual cycle. This has mainly been attributed to the fact that women, and girls drop out of school due to periods and the mismanagement of their Vigina, using abstract materials for their menstruation which makes them vulnerable to infections.
Young girls in our schools and communities are impoverished and may find it difficult to constantly purchase sanitary pads as the price for the cheapest pad is quite not easily not affordable. As a result, we believe that free sanitary pads should benefit young girls and women as they would not need to miss out on school or work.
Sex is a choice and menstruation is not. We believe that in doing this, it will positively impact young girls, female inmates, female genders with disabilities and women's lives and possibly relief the stress of low income families.

Girls, women, female inmates and female genders with disabilities menstruated yesterday, they are menstruating today and they will menstruate tomorrow. Should it take us a lifetime to get used to the idea that this natural biological process will always be with us and we have to decisively act to end period poverty once and for all?

The impact goals for the next year from Nicholasmotivates Initiative is encompass on structuring our sustainability plan that will help spread the campaign project “GIVE OUT A PAD, SAVE A GIRL CHILD” to all the 36 states in nigeria and across africa. We passionately intend to create a vigorous awareness on menstrual hygiene management across all the 36 states in nigeria aswell as africa stating clearly that; No girl should start her periods without accurate education about periods and adequate sanitary products to manage her periods. No parent should feel ashamed to talk about periods with their adolescent children. In our impact goals of ending menstrual shame, menstrual stigma and taboo, we have a dream that girls and boys will one day talk about periods and ask questions and discuss solutions without fear or shame. We will put out every possible measures of putting boys and men into menstruation hence making menstruation a normal conversation between the opposite gender thereby improving the dignity, health and wellbeing of girls, women, female inmates and female genders with disabilities through menstrual equity.

We hope to achieve our impact goals basically by our purchasing minimally 3 sanitary pads producing machine which will aid us produce sanitary pads in large quantities thereby expanding our beneficiary scheme across all 36 states in nigeria aswell as africa.

The “GIVE OUT A PAD, SAVE A GIRL CHILD” campaign project just like every other scaleable project requires technology to be productive and effective.

We as an organization make use of the social media space to create more awareness about our project aswell as scout for supports, donations, sponsorship and partnership.

Through the social media platforms, we are also able to sensitize the public space about the arising maladies and anomalies attributed to menstrual hygiene management.

Through the disposition of technology, we are also able to create a database for our beneficiaries across rural communities, prisons, schools, IDP camps and disability centers.

Currently, the “GIVE OUT A PAD, SAVE A GIRL CHILD” campaign project has a sum total of 23650 beneficiaries across 6 states in nigeria. Our bank pads across these 6 states are situated in rural communities, prisons, schools, IDP camps and disability centers.

in the next year, we passionately strive and crave to build a minimum sum total of 3000000 beneficiaries across the 36 states in nigeria aswell as some africa countries.

The only existing barrier to the accomplishments of our goals is financial barrier.

With the realization of having us purchase at least 3 sanitary pads producing machines, we will be able to accomplish our target goals of making the “GIVE OUT A PAD, SAVE A GIRL CHILD” campaign project a national project spread across the 36 states in nigeria aswell as africa countries.

We are currently partnering with molped sanitary pad with sponsorship from various organizations like Falcon cooperation, SheLeads, GirlsEmpower, Yali Abuja chapter and so many others.

Molped sanitary pad has a partnership scheme with us that support our project with 1000 cartoons of molped sanitary pad yearly for 3 years and 2022 is the last year of our partnership.

The various sponsorship from various organizations comes in terms of support in various capacities towards our outreach sensitization programs.