Pads Indigent Teen Girls across Public Schools in Ode-Aye Kingdom
The uniqueness of the girl-child was unveiled at the first outreach led by a fast rising child development focused NGO in Ikale land, Development for Rural Lives through Intervention Programme, DRIP held across public schools at Ode-Aye Kingdom.
The girl child at puberty level that ought to be the most interesting and cherished stage of development had unfortunately been met with a conventional shame, stigma shyness and inferiority complex, all that comes with menses.
In a bid to curtail this and its impending effect on girl-child, the DRIP team, led by the duo of Suzan Akinboroye and Olatujoye Ibiyemi initiated a ‘meet and greet’ with hundreds of female students in Layelu High School and Comprehensive High School in Ode-Aye respectively whilst plans to take the concept to other areas of Ikale land in progress.
The ‘meet and greet’ featured an expository unravelling the secrets to attaining girls’ perfect hygiene at the time of their monthly flow, combating the conventional stigma associated with menses, and becoming an object of attraction to all as naturally endowed.
Beyond exposing the girls to achieving the peak of cleanliness and confidence in course of their monthly periods; DRIP, in its gesture to support the teen girls handed over 200 packs of pads to all present, with a platform for routine check on their adherence and development in place.
In the words of the Convener and Founder of the initiative, Samuel Ayejusunle; ”it was indeed an aura of fulfilment and utmost ecstasy, how today, some roses of honour were attached to the personage of every girl child present; and their self-esteem boosted to the peak, as every girl, at the end, was seen walking out of the hall majestically, as a queen, having discovered the secrets to go and live a life of decency as object of attraction and epitome of beauty they are divinely made to be, and bidding menstrual shame and stigma, a farewell”.
“At DRIP, the crux of our activities hinges on rural lives with emphasis on the development of rural children between ages 10 -19. This menstrual hygiene advocacy was just invented to quickly arrest this lingering issues that sorround menses, hygiene and the usual misconception amongst rural girls. As such, our subsequent programmes shall focus on all round development of Ikale kids with a 21st century style and reality”.
As the day was for Layelu High school and Comprehensive High school in Ode-Aye community, the team is on course to cover more grounds in Ikale nation, in no distant time.
