Empowering the Girl Child

Management of menstruation can present substantial challenges to girls in low-income settings. Many girls in primary schools in rural areas skip school when they start having their monthly menstrual cycle. They are subjected to embarrassment and fear of teasing related to menstruation. This, together with menstrual pain and lack of effective materials for menstrual hygiene management, leads to school absenteeism, thus impeding their academic performance. Social studies in schools show that poverty and menstruation as the key factors associated with school attendance among girls.

CISS promotes girl engagement by distributing sanitary pads to girls in primary schools as part of good hygiene intervention to reduce school absenteeism. The girl child needs to be empowered to aim high in their studies and therefore CISS is stepping up resource mobilization to be able to reach more schools and more girls.
In May 2020, CISS distributed sanitary pads to girls in a few schools in Kisumu County as a good hygiene intervention in schools. One of the schools visited by our CISS staff, is Oseno Primary School and our officers namely; Evaline Obado, Maxwell Oduol, Emmanuel Okoth, and Moses presented 450 sanitary packs for 113 to girls in Oseno Primary School in Kanyadet sub-location.