The Kpone-Katamanso Municipality of the Greater Accra Region in collaboration with the Tema Community 25 Rotary Club marked the 2023 Menstrual Hygiene Day in Oyibi. The 2023 Menstrual Hygiene Day was observed on the theme: 'Making Menstruation a Normal Fact of Life by 2030,' with the aim of ending menstrual poverty and stigma attached to the menstrual cycle among females. In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mrs Leticia Insaidoo, a member of the Tema Community 25 Rotary Club and a Menstrual Hygiene Advocate, stated that menstruation and its associated challenges needed to be tackled by all stakeholders. Mrs Insaidoo noted that the Rotary Club had seven key areas of interest, one of which is child and maternity health, hence the need to support the Kpone-Katamanso Municipal Health Directorate to undertake the 2023 Menstrual Hygiene Day celebrations. According to her, there should not be any reason for which a student would absent herself from school due to menstruation, adding that corporate organizations must step in and take up the challenge by ensuring adequate sanitary towels are procured to support the girl child. Mrs Insaidoo assured that the Tema Community 25 Rotary Club would remain committed to solving menstrual challenges to make the girl child confident and be in school even while menstruating. Dr Esther Priscilla Biamah-Dankwa, Kpone-Katamanso Municipal Health Director, thanked the Tema Community 25 Rotary Club on behalf of the health directorate for the gesture, stressing that the gesture was in the right direction. She said menstruation should not be seen as a taboo, and people should not stigmatize females for undergoing such a natural life phenomenon. Dr Biamah-Dankwa called for a pragmatic response from the government and its agencies, including the various stakeholders, to put in place plans as a matter of urgency to ensure students were given adequate sanitary towels to curb the school absenteeism challenges. Over 500 students from the Oyibi Presby Primary converged at the Oyibi Presbyterian Church to observe Menstrual Hygiene Day. Participants were given packs of sanitary towels and blood tonic to replace their lost blood due to the flow.

Source: Ghana News Agency