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Pad A Dada Initiative

To increase access to education, health and human rights for women and girls through advocacy and sanitary provision to enable them live more meaningful lives. Kilifi produced a fine lady to better the world, Ladies and gentlemen Welcome to the official page of Pad A Dada. founded late last year, the initiative aims at empowering young girls who might meet the problem of facing days out of school due to missing sanitary towels. The single most important challenge facing Kenya today is breaking the grip of poverty. The social situation is characterized by growing number of HIV/AIDS orphans, unemployment, child labour and violence. Girls and women of all ages still have a very limited say over their lives and in particular over their sexuality. The main problems addressed by Pad A Dada Initiative: •	The expense of commercial sanitary pads; •	Reduce absenteeism where girls stay at home rather than attending school when menstruating; •	unhygienic ways to dry menstrual materials; •	inadequate waste disposal facilities; •	lack of privacy for changing menstrual materials; •	leakage from poor-quality protection materials; •	the lack of resources for washing such as soap; •	limited education about the facts of menstruation; •	limited access to counseling and guidance; •	fear caused by cultural myths; •	embarrassment and low self-esteem; •	and the unsupported attitudes of some men.

Theosis of Pad A Dada Initiative

About 65% of women and girls in Kilifi cannot afford sanitary pads. Evidence suggests that the period around puberty is one in which many girls drop out of school or are absent from school for significant periods of time. This means that over 85,000 girls miss 6 weeks of school every year and women miss valuable work hours. Menstruation causes Kenyan adolescent girls to lose an average of 3.5 million learning days per month (Muvea, 2011). Limited access to safe, affordable, convenient and culturally appropriate methods for dealing with menstruation has far reaching implications for rights and physical, social and mental well-being of many adolescent girls in Kenya and other developing countries as well. It undermines sexual and reproductive health and well-being and has been shown to restrict access to education. Faced with the complete lack of sanitary pads, this can only mean that the girls miss school for considerable period of time and this has negative impact on the quality of learning they receive, their overall academic performance, their retention and transition through the education system. Meanwhile, UNESCO estimates that one in 10 African adolescent girls miss school during menses and eventually drop out because of menstruation related issues.

Furthermore many adolescent girls and women in Kenya and kilifi in particular have limited knowledge about their bodies, especially in relation to menstruation and sexual and reproductive health. Menstruation is treated with silence and as a taboo topic with menstrual blood viewed as unclean and harmful, which limits women’s and adolescent girls’ access to relevant and important information about their bodies. In schools, there is usually a lack of physiological education. This is often attributed to predominantly male science teachers feeling uncomfortable about teaching such a subject, especially if they have not received formal training in how to do so. At home, advice (traditionally given by aunts and grandmothers) is often insufficient. Older women often considered ‘wise’ are also often illiterate or uneducated themselves, and may recount and reinforce myths that are biologically incorrect.

The inaccessibility of menstrual products results in embarrassment, anxiety and shame when girls and women stain their clothes, which is stigmatising. Once girls start missing school they are far more likely to be exposed to other risks such as early pregnancy and marriage, HIV/AIDS and female genital mutilation. Increasing girl’s completion of education cycles is a critical component of efforts to build their wider empowerment and in particular for ensuring that they are more able to be involved in decision making over all aspects of their lives including over their reproductive and sexual health rights. Additionally, inaccessibility of menstrual products compromises the effective uptake of family planning services. This is occasioned by the fact that girls who cannot afford the disposable sanitary towels more often are more at risk of manipulation by men who promise to provide them with the money to buy the pads. Eventually they are forced to have sexual relationship which ultimately leads to unwanted pregnancies and further risks of maternal and child health related problems as they are normally not prepared to take care of children at these early ages. THUS, The main objectives of the Initiative are:

•	To offer pads and sanitary equipment as well as to research and find out if the main system of these pads are working and if not then why •	to use the intended research can improve school attendance among girls between the ages of 10 and 15 years in primary schools; •	how to increase access to 10,000 vulnerable adolescent girls with sanitary towels and comprehensive menstrual hygiene management knowledge and risk awareness of HIV&AIDS among in-school and out of school girls between the ages 10 to 15 years; •	to increase the self-esteem of needy girls between ages 10 to 15 years; •	to improve economic status for out of young women between 18-34 years; •	and to document lessons learned and scale-up options documented.

THE MODEL AND JUSTIFICATION OF THE INITIATIVE

Up to 10,000 girls from marginalised communities within 100 primary schools have and will continue to benefit from the project. The project will have an impact on health status of girls through improvement in the health status and personal hygiene of the girls as a result of using the reusable pads. This will be realised in the sense that girls will no longer have to use unhygienic materials like old pieces of cloth or old newspapers that most of them are currently using during their menses. Also considering the fact that the first menstruation is often horrifying and traumatic to an adolescent girl because it usually occurs without her knowing about it, the knowledge and understanding of girls on menstrual hygiene and reproductive health issues will be enhanced further leading to improved health status, increased levels of confidence and active involvement of girls in school. It is consequently anticipated that by providing the reusable pads, the number of days of education that a girl might receive as a result of this initiative could increase by as much as 3-5 days in a month. Ultimately, there will be a significant reduction in the rate of school dropout as well as reduced vulnerability of the girls to early engagement in sex in order to get income for acquiring the basic needs like sanitary pads.

Girls that are regularly absent from school are more likely to be those that drop out and fail to transit successfully through the education system. By reducing the number of days of absence currently related to their menstrual cycle, it is anticipated that retention and transition rates amongst girls at individual schools could improve by up to 60%. Girls will therefore be able to go to school and participate in school activities thereby ensuring a holistic development i.e. mental, physical and social development. With the significant reduction in drop out cases amongst girls, which ultimately will lead to improved performance of girls in schools, these will eventually culminate into increased income opportunities for girls as they finish school and are able to access more opportunities for income earning/generation and dignified livelihoods. The provision of reusable sanitary pads coupled with the proposed activities involving girls, boys, and the wider community on menstrual hygiene and rights are likely to have important direct impacts on the economic status of up to 10 households considering that about 10 women from vulnerable backgrounds will be engaged in the production of the reusable pads. By mainstreaming an innovative group level savings mobilisation methodology to improve the income sources and productivity of the resource poor and vulnerable community members engaged in this project as production staff, increased income for these families will be realised.

Detailed Plan of Activities and Budget '''ACTIVITY	TIME FRAME July-Dec 2015	Jan-June 2016''' J	A	S	O	N	D	J	F	M	A	M	J RESEARCH ACTIVITY Conduct familiarization visits to schools Procuring materials and producing pads Development of detailed instructions for pads use Distribution of pads in schools and monitoring on reaction Building the capacity of 10,000 girls on menstrual hygiene management Staff induction on the project Mobilisation of school management committees and heads Design, development and production of IEC materials (Red Visitors Booklet) TOT workshop for focal point teachers Menstrual Hygiene Management trainings School health club/ambassadors meetings Undertaking a girls day event Girls sharing at home how fathers and fathers can support them during their menses Periodic staff planning and review meetings Monitoring and Evaluation Conducting baseline survey Undertaking monitoring visits Evaluation Capitalisation workshop of the programmes’ achievements Product improvement and quality control Acquisition of different types of materials for each layer based on availability and their characteristics Quality control through fabric testing, physical and chemical, and microbiological laboratory analysis