Nana Ama Adutwumoah, the founder of Touching the Lives of Girls Foundation (TLGF) said she had to sell off her car in 2020 to buy sanitary pads for female students in some second-cycle schools.
That was after she had realized that most female students in their early puberty stages in most schools in the Greater Accra Region absent themselves or sometimes quit school when they start their menstruation. This is because they do not know how to hygienically take care of themselves or do not have money to buy sanitary pads.
Nana Ama Adutwumoah realized the phenomenon during her visit to some of the first-and second-cycle schools in the region to educate the girl-child on the best way of taking care of themselves during menstruation.
She explained that while some female students used fabric cloth, foam or tissue, others use hand sanitiser or corn cobs instead of hygienic sanitary pads, which their parents could hardly afford for them.
She said her personal experience while growing up and the adverse medical effect she had had to endure from her inability to use hygienic menstrual pads informed her to form the TLGF in 2015 to visit schools in the country and to sensitise the girl-child on the need to use sanitary pads.
“And it was during my national tour of the schools when I realised that I needed to sell my car in 2020 to buy sanitary pads for distribution to these girls in the schools.
“I thought they (girls) had to have enough for the number of days they menstruated monthly to protect them against certain preventable diseases associated with the use of unhygienic sanitary pads.
“Additionally, these girls would not regularly absent themselves from school or in some cases, drop out of school as a result of their parents’ inability to be buying them hygienic sanitary pads monthly,” Nana Ama Adutwumoah explained at Melcom, Achimota branch, where the company donated 180 cartons of sanitary pads and drinks for distribution to girls in their puberty in five regions.
The gesture, which formed part of Meclom Care Foundation’s corporate social responsibility, would be distributed to schools in the Eastern, Central, Volta, Western and Ashanti Regions, with the latter hosting this year’s Ghana’s World Menstrual Hygiene Day, Friday.
That would be followed by seminars in some selected schools in the same regions, which Guinness Ghana Breweries PLC has agreed to join hands with Melcom Care Foundation to support TLGF to hold.
Nana Adutwumoah expressed her enormous gratitude to Melcom for the huge gesture that Godwin Avenorgbo, Group Director of Communications, Melcom Group Companies, said would not be the last.
With about 4.5 million girls in school from the basic to the second cycle and about 560,788 in the public SHS and 41,514 in the private SHS, Mr Avenorgbo said his outfit would not relent in supporting such projects that have the backing of former President John Agyekum Kufuor and Lady Julia Osei Tutu, both patrons of TLGF, and Nana Adutwumoah whose sacrifices have kept the foundation going.
Melcom Care Foundation has, over the years, supported laudable projects and assisted displaced Ghanaians in some parts of the country and to Mr Avenorgbo, Melcom would do more.
