{"id":2101,"date":"2015-03-02T05:00:28","date_gmt":"2015-03-02T13:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imagine1day.org\/?p=2101"},"modified":"2015-03-02T05:00:28","modified_gmt":"2015-03-02T13:00:28","slug":"problem-no-girl-should-have-to-think-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imagine1day.org\/problem-no-girl-should-have-to-think-about\/","title":{"rendered":"A problem no girl should have to think about in school"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s the International Day of the Girl! Let\u2019s talk about that thing no one wants to talk about.<\/h2>\n

\u201cEmpowerment of and investment in girls\u2026are critical for economic growth, including the eradication of poverty and extreme poverty\u2026and in promoting and protecting the full and effective enjoyment of their human rights.\u201d \u2014 United Nations Resolution 66\/170, December 19, 2011<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Girls

Girls at latrine<\/p><\/div>\n

The crimson wave, Aunt Flo, that time of the month, the red tide.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s something most people don\u2019t want to talk about, but on the International Day of the Girl, we\u2019re going to talk about it, because the connection between girls\u2019 education and sanitation is bigger than you think.<\/p>\n

Like most Canadian girls, when I first got my period, I never worried about my life changing forever\u2014apart from the whole becoming a woman thing. Was it a fun experience? No. Was it traumatic? Only that one time at the beach. Did I ever even consider how it might affect my attendance at school? Never.<\/p>\n

Then I moved to Ethiopia, where pads, tampons and all other female sanitary products are an expensive commodity\u2014even in buzzing capital of Addis Ababa. Foreign women literally arrive in the country armed with a year\u2019s worth of stock.<\/p>\n

So in tiny rural villages like Yadot, women and girls have few options. They\u2019re literally on the rag<\/em>. You think pads and tampons are a pain? Try using a piece of cloth. You\u2019ll be in and out of the bathroom all day.<\/p>\n

\"Outside

Most schools we work with have no latrines. If they do, they look something like this one, at Batu Primary School. Due to a lack of privacy, boys are the only ones who use them.<\/p><\/div>\n

Unless if there is no bathroom. Unless if all you have is the bush, and you\u2019re living in a society where you may not even know about puberty and what it entails, because if you ask your mother about it, she may immediately assume you have started sleeping with boys. So now you\u2019re at school and there\u2019s a rag stuffed between your legs and you have to change it, but there\u2019s nowhere to go because other boys and girls are running around all over the place. What exactly are you going to do?<\/p>\n

Sifan, a 14-year-old student from the village of Yadot, can tell you what you\u2019ll do. \u201cFor us, as a girl, if we get our period when we don\u2019t have a good toilet, why would I come to school? [A proper latrine] keeps our privacy. Otherwise no girl wants to go to school,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Manderina*, a 16-year-old from the village of Batali faces the same predicament. \u201cSometimes we don\u2019t want to go to the forest because we\u2019re afraid of other boys and girls,\u201d says the Grade 5 student. \u201cSo we stay by keeping ourselves away.\u201d<\/p>\n

For ambitious girls like Sifan and Manderina, who are both at the top of their classes, missing school is a difficult decision. But the stakes are even higher in a culture where early marriage is encouraged as soon as a girl hits womanhood.<\/p>\n

Just ask Manderina; she\u2019s been fighting off marriage proposals for almost two years now. If it weren\u2019t for her teacher\u2019s intervention, her parents would have already married her off.<\/p>\n

A lack of private latrines aren\u2019t the only reason communities like Batali have only one girl in school for every three boys, but it certainly doesn\u2019t help.<\/p>\n

Fortunately this is one issue female students won\u2019t have to worry about any more in the villages of Batu and Likimsa in southern Ethiopia. On March 11, imagine1day is inaugurating new gender-segregated latrines\u2014to go with new classrooms\u2014in both communities.<\/p>\n

Girls in Mekenisa, Walkite and Bidimo Saru don\u2019t have much longer to wait either. imagine1day broke ground on new latrines and classrooms in those communities this February, and they will be complete in July.<\/p>\n

*Manderina is not her real name. Her name was changed for her protection.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s the International Day of the Girl! Let\u2019s talk about that thing no one wants to talk about.<\/p>\n

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