The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
MELODY Nkomo, a Form Three pupil walks 15 kilometres from Makwate area at Arda Balu Estate to Mahlothova Secondary School in Umguza District in pursuit of education.
On Wednesdays after lessons she and four of her peers dedicate their free time to sewing reusable sanitary pads for themselves and other less fortunate girls in the school. While her peers discover the ups and downs of puberty, Melody is playing the role of a mother in a child headed family.
She has to fetch water, firewood, cook and care for her siblings who after they were abandoned by their parents, at the same time cater for her menstrual health. Her unfortunate circumstances have not deterred her from seeking education and allowed issues of menstruation to disturb her too.
Teachers at the school are impressed that despite the heavy burdens she has on her shoulders, she has never been late for lessons since she started her Form One. She and her peers are beneficiaries of a Sista to Sista programme which provides health education for young girls in the areas of HIV, cancer and menstrual health issues.
“I come from Makwate and I attend school here. We decided together with my four friends that we assist others by sewing disposable sanitary pads. We started this project last term after being trained by Sista to Sista on how to make them.
We use a template to cut out the pattern and we use brushed cotton and fleece to make the pads. These pads are very absorbent and one does not stain their clothes or school uniform,” she said.
“One needs at least four of the pads each that you can rotate and wash throughout your cycle. We wash them and hang them dry in the sun so that they do not get infected with bacteria. The pads are kept for as long as nine months before we replace them.”
The girls said the pads are comfortable just like the disposable sanitary pads that are available in the shops.
“What we do is that you can wear one from morning until break time and you change it and wrap it in a plastic, at lunch time you can change if need be again and we wash them when we go back home and dry them.
“We use clean water to wash them and they work just fine. These have helped us a lot because we no longer miss school because we are menstruating.
“Before some girls would hide themselves at home because they had inadequate sanitary wear so they would miss school,” said one of the girls in the team.
The girls said the training they received has enabled them to make pads for many others although material is sometimes a challenge. Two of the girls do the actual sewing and the other three assist in drawing and cutting out patterns. One metre of cloth makes about 30 pads.
“We are making pads first for the vulnerable girls at the school as they are most in need. We would want to make more but the challenge is that we are ill resourced, we have no material at the moment and a machine to work with, we are borrowing one from the classes that do fashion and fabrics, we do not have one dedicated to the project.
“We would be grateful if we get sewing machines both manual or electric that can enable us to do more and we can even sew for other girls in the community and even adults as we have seen that they are a hit within the community,” they said.
The girls said they also make some of the pads by hand with needles when the machines are not available. Ms Wenzile Ndlovu, a teacher at the school, said the project was greatly assisting the girl child.
“The challenge is that we need a sponsor for materials and a machine solely for this project. These girls that were trained under the Sista to Sista programme are so empowered now, that they helping others.
“When they do not have the pads available they feel that they are failing their peers as the teachers who started the project with them nurtured them to be helpers to their peers,” she said.
The school has more than 270 girls that are benefiting from the project and said before the school would purchase sanitary pads and give to the girls but they have stopped due to economic hardships.
“As teachers we got into situations where we had our best students in the class who could go for a week without attending classes.
“We then would take it upon ourselves to put some of the girls on our budgets and take from the small salaries that we had and provide pads. But now it has become more difficult, we can no longer afford,” she said.
Matabeleland North Guidance and Counselling Teachers Association chair Mrs Gabriella Chikara said the programme has attracted a lot of attention and the school was now training other girls from their sister school on how to make the pads.
“In July we are hosting the pad making week and it is an ongoing programme. We want to see all 23 schools in the province making their own pads.
“We have a huge burden in Matabeleland North looking at the need for pads. There are sad stories that come from here, one student once told us that they would sit in a hole and wait for blood to flow out and they bury it to avoid being detected,” she said.
Mrs Chikara said other pupils said they were using leaves or newspapers to block blood and sometimes run away from lessons.
Gender Links, a Non-Governmental Organisation that champions women’s rights recently trained media practitioners on strengthening Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) reporting and to also raise awareness on provisions in the Sadc Protocol on Gender and Development.
The training offered journalists an opportunity to learn more about issues affecting women and girls in various areas of health and how to report effectively on them. Menstrual health was one of topical issue and calls were made to conscientise the public on the need to support initiatives that improve the lives of school girls.
