By Philip Yatai
The Empowering Women for Excellence Initiative (EWEI) has taken its menstrual cycle and hygiene awareness campaign to Narayi community in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
The campaign, which targets women, men, young girls and boys, focuses on good hygiene practices and tracking menstrual cycle, using beads, calendar and online application among other methods.
EWEI Senior Programme Officer, Ms Rachel Ogbonna, who led the awareness campaign on Sunday, explained that it was in commemoration of 2023 World Menstrual Hygiene Day.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the day is an annual awareness event on May 28, to highlight the importance of good menstrual hygiene management at a global level.
The 2023 theme is, “Making menstruation a normal fact of life by 2030.”
Ogbonna blamed the increasing number of adolescent pregnancies on the knowledge gap on how to track the menstrual cycle.
According to her, the enlightenment campaign is designed to educate women and girls on good menstrual hygiene practices and how to track their menstrual cycle and ovulation period, using menstrual beads.
“Menstrual beads are made up of a series of colour-coded beads which enables you to track your cycle and know if you are on a fertile day.
“They are a string of 28 colour-coded beads, with each bead representing a day of a woman’s menstrual cycle.
“The colour of the beads lets you know whether you are on a day when you’re likely to be fertile or not, and generally takes you through the menstrual cycle phases.
“Menstrual beads stand as a global symbol for menstruation and represent a commitment to end menstrual stigma.”
While distributing the beads to women and girls in the community, Ogbonna explained that they were efficient and easy-to-use tool that would help them to keep track of their cycles.
She pointed out that symbols had the power to catalyse awareness and action, adding that by wearing the menstrual beads, people showed that menstrual periods were a normal part of life.
“It helps in starting conversations about menstruation and helps to push back period stigma,” she said.
She also sensitised the residents to other menstrual cycle tracking methods like the use of calendar and mobile applications, using smartphones.
One of the community members, Mrs MaryAnn Bulus, a petty trader and young mother of three, thanked the EWEI team for the enlightenment, which she described as very educating.
She expressed happiness to learn new ways of tracking her menstrual cycle and maintaining good hygiene .
(NAN)
