In Nigeria, 130 million people (two-thirds of the population) do not have access to adequate sanitation. The fact that many women and girls do not have the facilities to manage their menstrual hygiene restricts their access to education and their participation in society, as well as endangering their health. Social taboos surrounding menstruation make the problem even more difficult to address.
We are responding to this challenge in three Local Government Areas that we are supporting to achieve Open Defecation Free status. We delivered community awareness training about menstruation – to both women and men – to reinforce the message that it is a normal, natural process. As a result of the training, men committed to support their wives and daughters. “We thought it was a woman’s thing but now it has become clear that we can discuss it freely,” one of the men told us.
Our training sessions also had a very practical element – to teach communities to make reusable sanitary pads from locally available materials (a cheaper and more accessible alternative to disposable pads). Many men and boys went from not speaking about menstruation to voluntarily learning how to make the pads. The women and girls told us that they appreciated that the whole community was now thinking about their menstrual needs.
Context: Our menstrual hygiene work in Nigeria falls under our UK Aid-funded project: ‘Community-Led Hygiene Improvement through Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion’ in Nigeria. Through this project, by April 2018, 756 communities in the three target Local Government Areas have become Open Defecation Free (ODF) and 74,510 people now have access to improved sanitation facilities. The 756 communities have successfully sustained their ODF status – a testament to UP’s position as a leading agency in Nigeria in developing strategies specifically to sustain ODF results. Through our Community-Led Improved Sanitation approach, we focus on sustaining positive behaviour change by creating structures, awareness and demand for improved latrines.