Every year on May 28th, girl champions use Menstrual Hygiene Day to raise awareness about period poverty and menstruation stigma.

For many girls in Sierra Leone, managing their periods is a challenge. In rural communities, families are often too poor to buy pads. When girls don’t have pads, they miss school, which affects their learning. But there’s hope. Through their initiative, Uman Tok, Schools for Salone are making a difference by providing girls with the pads they need to stay in school. 

Uman Tok’s Unmissable Impact on Menstrual Hygiene Day

This menstrual Hygiene Day, we shine the light on Uman Tok, a reproductive health education intervention created under Schools for Salone as a response to the high incidence of teenage pregnancy and young girls dropping out of school after the ebola virus in 2016. Uman Tok seamstresses in Freetown make thousands of menstrual kits each year. 

Mariama Turay, one of the seamstresses

The team at Uman Tok works tirelessly to ensure that no girl has to miss school because of her period. Uman Tok empowers girls with the tools to continue their education uninterrupted by creating reusable pads and a complete menstrual hygiene kit. They also provide reproductive health education to teenage boys and girls, dispelling myths and making sure that they understand how to take proper care of themselves. 

Since Uman Tok launched in 2019, 40,000 menstrual hygiene kits have been distributed to young girls in communities across Sierra Leone.

Whenever kits are given, young girls stop missing classes and can attend classes with little discomfort. With this positive effect, it has become a ritual to provide pads and reproductive health care education to these young ones regularly so they can build a bright future for themselves. 

What You Can Do About Period Poverty in Sierra Leone

We ask that you support Schools For Salone to produce more menstrual health kits for these young girls. Each kit contains;

• Eight reusable and absorbent liners
• Two waterproof shields, two panties
• One washcloth
• Two ziplock plastic bags for washing
• One bar of soap
• One drawstring to store it all
• A How-To-Care sheet

A donation of $1000 can provide reproductive health education for ten classrooms, and a gift of $100 can provide ten reusable menstruation kits. 

Join our campaign to expand period dignity. Donate to the vital work!  Every contribution can make a big difference in the lives of girls affected by period poverty.