The EmpowerHer Project, a youth advocacy non-profit, has called on the Federal government to integrate menstrual health education into the national school curriculum, stressing that it is vital to the well-being, confidence, and academic performance of young girls across Nigeria.
The Project is dedicated to empowering Nigerian secondary school girls by ensuring equal access to menstrual health resources, quality education, and support for their personal and academic success.
This is even as the NGO has distributed over 3000 free menstrual products across secondary schools in Rivers and other states of the country.
Elizabeth Aderonke Odukoya, founder of the NGO, made the call at the unveiling of a book titled ‘Periods, Pads and Proud’ in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
She called on the federal, state and local authorities to address issues around menstrual health in secondary education, especially.
Odukoya said the NGO, backed by a growing network of 60 passionate volunteers, from students and medical professionals, is carrying out advocacy on the importance of menstrual health.
She added that the NGO is also working with schools and local authorities to integrate menstrual health into school curricula and also advocating for a future where no girl has to miss school, feel ashamed, and lack the resources she needs simply because of her period.
She pointed out that the NGO has reached out to more than 3000 girls across 11 schools and communities in Nigeria, delivering interactive health talks and distributing over 3000 free menstrual products and promoting sustainable, reusable sanitary pads as a long-term and eco-friendly solution.
“Backed by a growing network of 60 passionate volunteers, from students and medical professionals to educators. The EmpowerHer Project is building a movement for change. We are working with schools and local authorities to integrate menstrual health into school curricula and advocating for a future where no girl has to miss school, feel ashamed or lack resources she needs simply because of her period.
“In just over a year, we’ve reached more than 3000 girls across 11 schools and communities in Nigeria, delivering interactive health talks, distributing over 3000 free menstrual products and promoting sustainable, reusable sanitary pads as a long-term, eco-friendly solution.
“Our work goes beyond product distribution. We break the silence and stigma around menstruation through open and practical education. We empower girls with knowledge and confidence to manage their periods safely and with dignity, while also engaging teachers, parents and communities to challenge harmful myths and taboos,”
The Director, Quality Assurance, Rivers State Ministry of Education, Chinedu Nwaodu, while speaking at the event, urged young girls, parents and teachers to take menstrual health seriously.
Nwaodu said all the secondary schools in Rivers State are equipped with relevant facilities to educate girls about menstrual health.
She urged both teachers and parents to educate the girl child on the importance of menstrual health.
“So it depends on the teachers if they carry it out, if they teach this topic very well, and I’m not talking only about our teachers, I am also talking about our parents, your mother’s, your father’s, what do you know about menstrual health? One of our directors told me that when her daughter first saw her period, instead of telling her mother, the girl went to her father to tell him, and it was the father who informed the mother about that.
” Even some of us as mothers are not doing what we are supposed to do. As for the schools, it’s there in the curriculum, it’s there in the scheme of work. So I implore the Principals , the Principal junior secondary, Principal senior secondary to work on your teachers, monitor them, know what they are doing at times you enter their classrooms to see what they are doing to see if they are actually teaching what they are supposed to teach,” she said.
Reviewing the book Kaladada Korubo, a Professor of Haematology in the College of Medical Science, Rivers State University, said, the book throws more light on what the female genital system is all about and talks about what menses and period actually mean.
She noted that the book explained what manque is all about, saying that manque is the first time a girl has her period.
“So the advantage is that knowledge is power so for that little girl who doesn’t know anything about menses having read this book that little girl is going to know it all. Some of us as mothers have never even discussed menses , period with our girl child. We just wait until we start observing the child when the child is about 9 , 10 years,” she said.