Let's Talk About Periods!

Today I'd like to share more information with you about a project that Peace Corps volunteers and GLOW counselors have been working on for a while, and that I'm really proud of.

In order to understand the importance of this project, its best to start with the big picture. Swaziland is a very small, landlocked country in southern Africa with an absolute monarch who rules over the approximately 1.3 million residents. Somewhere between 24 and 29% of Swazis are HIV-positive. Due to the devastating impact of AIDS on the country, the life expectancy of a Swazi is 52 years. Many children grow up in child-headed households, or with an elderly family member as their primary caretaker, due to the AIDS and Tuberculosis epidemics taking the lives of their parents. Patriarchy reigns here, and influences almost every aspect of culture. Recent estimates put the rate of women ages 15-24 who have sex with men who are 10 or more years older than them is over 15%, and has been increasing rapidly for the past ten years. This "sugar daddy" (or "blesser", as it is called locally) problem stems from young girls lacking access to basic needs and resources. Girls in rural communities struggle to obtain everything from food and toiletries, to school fees so they can pursue her education past a primary level, to wanting airtime for their cellphones and money to get their hair done. Early sexual debut, polygamous marriages, lack of parental or role model figures at home, and poverty are some of the reasons that women are disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic in Swaziland. 31% of women are living with HIV, compared to 20% of men.

With statistics this grave, it is hard to know where to begin when approaching change from a community level. What we do know, however, is that girls who are given the opportunity to pursue education are more likely to avoid early pregnancy,  transactional sexual relationships, and HIV infection. With an education, a girl can have a direction for her future beyond marriage and raising children. She can pursue a degree, a career, and financial self-sufficiency. She can avoid becoming trapped in an unfaithful or abusive relationship, because she won't have to fear how to support herself or her children without a man.

The education system in Swaziland is full of high-stake exams that determine whether or not a student will advance to the next grade. If a student does not pass, they must repeat their current grade. That is an entire year of school fees that were "wasted", and have to be paid again. When you have five school-age siblings and an unreliable source of family income, as is the norm in rural Swaziland, the pressure is on to pass your exams and advance, so your education is no longer a financial burden on the family. Now imagine that you are forced to miss several days of school each month, when you should be learning algebra and practicing English and studying biology in order to pass your exams, due to your menstrual period. It is estimated  that 60% of Swazi girls enrolled in school miss classes an average of 2 days every month for this reason.

There is a certain taboo surrounding the use of tampons, which are extraordinarily expensive and not even available in stores outside of the few major cities. Disposable pads cost about 15Rand for a pack of 8. This adds up to approximately 45Rand per a woman's monthly cycle, which my seem affordable from a western perspective. At the current exchange rate, that's about $3.25 per month. Keep in mind, however, that the average household income in Swaziland is $269 per month, and that is when there are two full-time income earners in the family. This money is to pay school fees for several children, buy school uniforms, put food on the table, get the income-earners to their jobs every day, buy electricity and airtime, pay doctor's bills, etc. As a girl child, it is very unlikely that 1% of your family's monthly income is going to be spent on sanitary pads for you.

This situation leads girls to use anything and everything they can find when dealing with their cycles, such as old dishcloths, newspapers, and even grasses and leaves. Obviously these products are not safe, sanitary, or particularly effective, which leads the girls to skip school due to embarrassment and a lack of alternatives.
Sanitary pads are a human right. Education is a human right.

Recognizing this problem, a Peace Corps volunteer and her GLOW counterpart wrote a proposal to MTN Swaziland for funding for a project where the girls in the club would make their own reusable sanitary pads. The MTN Foundation primarily funds education projects, and saw the clear link. They liked the idea so much they asked if they could expand it. A few weeks ago, 35 sewing machines and material toolkits were handed over to GLOW counselors from around the country. Each toolkit contains templates, a guide book, thread, needles, snaps, scissors, pins, and all they types of fabrics necessary for the construction of over 100 reusable sanitary pads. Additionally, each kit has  50 bars of soap to ensure the girls can properly wash the pads before and after use.

Preparing the materials for the toolkits was a big job!

The items in each toolkit

Counselors were trained in the basic workings of their sewing machine, and then went through the step-by-step instructions for making a pad. Afterwards, they had the opportunity to practice making a storage bag for used pads. The way the pads are constructed, the snaps under the wings which secure them in underwear can also be used to secure a soiled pad shut, before it is placed in the bag and taken home to be washed, dried, and worn again.

Each GLOW counselor signed a contract upon receiving her sewing machine, in which she promised to conduct training with the girls in her club and send them all home with their own reusable pads and storage bags. Their progress will be monitored every three months, and materials will be replenished as needed, thanks to the continued support of MTN.

Counselors at the training

*Sidenote: Rural Swaziland is almost entirely without improved sanitation facilities, meaning people use pit latrines, or holes dug in the ground with a plastic porta-potty type seat on top, instead of toilets. These latrines are highly labor-intensive to dig, and they do fill up. Most families try to avoid putting trash in the latrine, because it takes up space and speeds the filling, and is also really bad for the environment. However, disposable menstrual pads (or whatever a girl or woman has resorted to using) are obviously very dangerous to be disposed of in the trash pit, since blood is involved and we are talking about a 24%+ HIV prevalence rate. Trash is usually burned in rural areas, but only on a weekly, or as-needed, basis. So a woman's choices when using disposable pads are to immediately burn them or to dispose of them down the latrine, neither of which are ideal.*

The materials used for the reusable pads, as well as the construction method were developed by textile engineering students from the University of Swaziland, and approved by the Standards Authority. The pads are comprised of layers of flannel, felt, and table cloth material.  Two layers of felt are in the middle for absorbency, followed by a tablecloth layer at the bottom to prevent leaks. These middle layers are wrapped in flannel, as a soft outer layer. They have wings with snaps to secure them in underwear. They are safe, sanitary, comfortable, and effective. If properly cared for, they can last up to 5 years.

Let's do some math for a second. If a girl is able to make 3 reusable pads to use and wash every day, those pads have the potential to last her though 60 menstrual cycles. If she had to buy disposable pads instead, assuming she could afford them, it would cost her 2,700Rand over those same 5 years. That is the equivalent of a full month's average household income in Swaziland, but more importantly, she did not have to worry about her cycle interfering with her daily activities or how she was going to manage it. She had peace of mind for those 5 years.

As excited as I am to see the outcome of this project, the counselors have my enthusiasm beat. Many have already started having workshops with their clubs. They have also recognized the opportunity in having a sewing machine as a resource, and are brainstorming income-generating projects for the girls in their clubs to put the machines to good use.

I wanted to write this post because I have heard a lot of commentary when talking about this project with "urban" Swazis and Americans alike, with people saying how "gross" the idea of reusable sanitary pads is. I hope this post can battle some of that ignorance. What is gross to me is the fact that Swazi girls miss precious days of school because of a completely solvable problem, and that people who have the privilege of never knowing that struggle can't see the bigger picture. These sanitary pads aren't going to change the world, but they are giving Swazi girls the chance to attend school every day, pass their exams, pursue their dreams, and become the people who will.

Girls already hard at work constructing pads in their communities!