Children all over the world are entitled to dignity and access to education. However, thousands of girls have not had a taste of this. Female students face great challenges in terms of hygiene and sanitation. Many schools have insufficient numbers of latrines, which are often poorly designed and maintained.

For girls who are menstruating, these problems compound the difficulties posed by the inability to afford sanitary towels as well as cultural taboos around menstruation. As a result, thousands of school girls in class four through class eight in Kenya miss up to one and a half months of class each and every year due to their menstrual cycles. This means that they fall behind in class and sometimes even drop out of school altogether.

School absence lowers girls’ academic performance and self-esteem and widens gender disparities in educational achievements. And, many girls who cannot afford sanitary napkins endanger their health by resorting to unhygienic solutions, such as leaves, newspapers, sand, old cloth, sponges, soil or feathers. This puts them at a huge risk of infection. This is an added challenge to the already existing problems that lead to the high dropout rate of female students in primary and secondary schools.