Around the world, girls living in poverty face difficulty attending school due to their menstrual periods. A majority of female students in Tanzania do not have the means to purchase menstrual pads - so they use pieces of mattresses, cloth, and even newspapers to cope. Huru International is an organization that provides sexual and menstrual education to youth in East Africa, along with a "life changing freedom" to young girls. Namely, this "freedom" comes in the form of a Huru Empowerment Kit, which consists of eight washable and re-usable menstrual pads, underwear, an airtight bag to store the pads in, and soap. While still a growing program, Huru International has shown very promising results to reduce absenteeism among Huru beneficiaries. You can learn more about Huru by visiting their website:
http://www.huruinternational.org/
My counterpart, Anna Ringo, and I, attended a Huru International training in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, this January. We brought back the knowledge and skills that we learned to reach 500 youth our village in February - March. While I served as a teacher for two years at Uroki Secondary School, a private, church-affiliated school in Uswaa, Ms. Ringo served as the second-master of Neema Secondary School, the government secondary school that serves the village of Uswaa. We formed a fast friendship through a mutual passion to empower our female students.
Check out the video (posted above) that highlights our series of three Huru seminars! Make sure to watch the video in full screen with the volume up. I made the video mostly for the purposes of our students, so there is a mixture of Kiswahili and English captions. However, I hope the meaning is quite clear to all :) Bonus points if you can find three grown women showing off floral underwear to a filled assembly hall!
During our first seminar (February 27, 2016), we reached 500 youth with education about puberty, HIV/AIDS, STDs, and gender-based violence, along with a condom demonstration. The second seminar (March 5, 2016) was for girls only, focusing on menstruation, the Huru kit, sexual and reproductive Health, handwashing, and early pregnancy. Both of these seminars included student-prepared entertainment (songs, dances, and poetry) as well as peer-to-peer teaching. Our final seminar (March 12, 2016) was a celebration of womanhood. We taught shorter sessions about life skills: self esteem, supporting each other, giving compliments, and saying NO!, and allowed the girls to take the spotlight with their final performances. After a delicious lunch prepared by the girls under our direction, we distributed 350 Huru kits to the neediest girls at Uroki and Neema Secondary School!
Much thanks to:
- Peace Corps Tanzania for funding this project and training, and for the purchase of Huru empowerment kits
- Huru International for invaluable expertise, education, and resources
- Anna Ringo (Second-master of Neema Secondary School, my community counterpart)
- Martha Mwaipopo (Biology teacher at Usharika wa Neema Secondary School, my community counterpart from a 2015 Huru intervention at Kindikati and Kisam Secondary Schools)
- Joseph Mchaki (Headmaster of Uroki Secondary School, for his constant cooperation and support for this project)
- Uroki staff: Christina Murro, Agnes Mkulago, Benson Mushi, Rev. Okuli Nkya, Agrey Swai, Japhet Ruseke, Arbogast Kavishe, Nickson Munisi, Aikandumi Swai, Aikonea Urasa, and others who helped contributed their time and effort to making these events successful)
- Neema staff who participated in Huru events
- Isaya Swai and Wilson Swai (my village community counterparts)
- Mary Gillis (a friend and Peace Corps Volunteer)
