"the girl with her period is the one to hang her head"

     In poor and underprivileged countries, it is common for girls to receive minimal instruction on what menstruation is and how it can be managed.  Discussions concerning this topic are perceived as inappropriate and shameful.  Because solutions to this monthly occurrence have not been addressed, schoolgirls in Kenya often suffer consequences such as poor academic performance and more importantly, school absence, which disables a girl to pursue an education or a career.  In Kenya, reproductive health issues are the leading cause of dropouts among primary age schoolgirls.  Because they do not have resources to properly care for themselves during menstruation, girls will stay home one out of every four weeks to avoid shame and embarrassment.  As a result, they receive less education and are more likely to cease going to school completely as they become older.  According to www.concernusa.org, "Around 54 percent of out-of-school children are girls, yet studies have shown that women who are educated have greater earning potential, are less vulnerable to HIV infection, have fewer and healthier children, and are more likely to send their own children to school.  Providing every mother in sub-Saharan Africa with a secondary education would save the lives of 1.8 million children."

     As I stated in my previous blog post, this summer I will be traveling to Kenya through the non-profit organization Koins for Kenya.  One of our projects is to build latrines for the Kenyan students near the schools.  This will allow the girls to attend school even while they are menstruating because there will be a facility nearby for them to properly care for their symptoms rather than being forced to go to the bathroom in a nearby bush or behind a tree.  As a fundraiser, we will be selling necklaces to raise money for the building of these latrines.  However, we need YOUR help to do this.

     We have been blessed with so many resources that many people around the world do not have the privilege of taking advantage of.  We are extremely fortunate to have the option of earning an education if we so choose and so many of us take that for granted, including myself at times.  Because of how abundantly I have been blessed, it would be so incredibly selfish not to use the resources I have been given to help improve the lives of others.  Something as simple as a latrine may not seem monumental to us but to a Kenyan schoolgirl who has the desire to earn an education so that she can better her life, it will mean the world.  If you would like to purchase a necklace or provide a donation, please let me know.  Asante sana!  (Thank you very much!)

(For more information: http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-11-7.pdf)