The menstrual cups support

The menstrual cup is a non-absorbent bell-shaped device that is inserted into the vagina to collect menstrual flow. It creates a seal and is held in place by the walls of the vagina. It is typically made of medical-grade silicone. 

It collects three times more blood than pads or tampons and needs to be emptied every 6-12 hours, after which it is rinsed and re-inserted, after each menstrual cycle the cup must be boiled for 5-10 minutes.

The cup can be used for 5-10 years and thus produces significantly less waste than other Menstrual health and hygiene (MHH) materials. While cups require water for boiling, they need far less than reusable pads or cloths.

Thank to our volunteers Adeline and Hugo for your support of menstrual cups to girls at Sahwa and Luchelele primary schools

 

 

  New Volunteers

Hello we are Adeline and Hugo and we are currently volunteering at Ni Hekima Pekee.

We are both 21 years old from Finland. We arrived at Mwanza Tanzania 6.5.2022 and we are staying here for two months. This is our first time in Africa and also our first time volunteering. So far our stay here in Mwanza has been really good. We have had both the opportunity to work and come up with new ideas together with the NIHEP staff and also got to explore the beautiful city! 

So what have we been doing this month we have been here? Well, we visit 3 different schools in the week. 

One is Lwanhima primary school where we work with disabled children. We help them with their tasks and support them. The two other schools are Sahwa and Luchelele primary schools. Here we have been teaching girls about keeping a healthy diet and a swell keeping good hygiene. The incoming weeks we will talk about puberty and menstruation. In the end we will be handing out menstrual cups.

The kids have been so welcoming to us and it has been a pleasure to be able to help and have sessions with them.

When we came here we knew a big issue for the girls is menstruation and that they often miss school when they have their period. This is because they do not have the right knowledge or protection for it. This problem became a big priority for us.

Adeline got an idea that menstrual cups could a solution. A menstrual cup you don’t need to use and throw away like other menstruation products, sometimes you can use one cup for up to 5 years! 

This would be a more economical and reusable option.

The girls can also find it hard changing their pads at school since there is often lack of private toilets. This problem would also be solved with a menstrual cup since you only need to empty it 1-2 times a day, depending on your bleeding.

We wanted to change this! 

We contacted a company and got a partnership with them that gave us a cheaper price. We made a fundraising.

Donation after donation came in and after only 3 days we had surpassed our goal!

We were extremely happy. We could now order a cup for each girl and also order extra so NIHEP can continue to teach about this subject even after we go back home to Finland. We made the order and now one week later we got a message that the cups have arrived and we can go pick them up.

We are thrilled everything went as planned and we will now plan the sessions and talk to the authorities so we can hand out the cups to the girls before we leave. We are happy with our first month here and look forward for the next one!

 

 

 

 

 

Puberty brings a lot of changes 

Under Wasiliana and Msichana thabiti , NIHEP has focused in the school visits to talk with the adolescent girls about puberty and its consequences to their  minds ,physically and emotionally. .

Wasiliana – project in Sahwa school:-  We have been talking a lot about puberty with the girls. The girls understood more about different symptoms and why some changes are happening in the body and the mind. We educated the girls about the hormonal system and told them that the changes during puberty are physical and emotional. We encouraged the girls to have self-esteem and confidence even though the puberty can be difficult time in many ways. We also shared our own experiences about their puberty and told the girls which kind of difficulties we faced during our adolescence. The girls were curious to listen and some girls had similar experiences with us. The most important thing in Wasiliana is to communicate . Wasiliana means communicate and we are working towards that goal.

 

Msichana Thabiti – project in Luchelele school:- The topic of the week in Luchelele was menstrual hygiene and menstrual disposal. With the girls we talked different menstruation protections such as pads, tampons and menstrual cup. We also discussed how important it is to take good care of the hygiene. Menstruation is a difficult time for many girls in Tanzania. The lack of hygienic facilities and menstrual pads cause girls not to attend the school during their periods. This of course effects negatively to the girls school results and it is possible that they don’t do as well in school than boys

 

Because the menstruation and puberty are topics which are not spoken at the girls homes even in  school, NIHEP is trying to educate the girls to feel more comfortable about these topics. We had successful sessions in both projects.

 

trainees Sonja & Fanni