S1:E3- Period Poverty

According to UNICEF, more than 1.2 million primary school-age children in Kenya, which has a population of 50 million, do not attend school at all. Research shows that 65% of Kenyan women and girls are unable to afford basic sanitary pads. As a consequence, girls often rely on the men in their lives for period products and some girls engage in transactional sex in order to secure sanitary products, perpetuating a patriarchal cycle of reliance and exploitation. In this episode I spoke to Benazir Omotto and Lavender Akinyi of Umande Trust, a rights based agency based in Kenya, on the work Benna does to highlight gaps in Menstrual health in informal settlements such as Kibra where they're based, and their collective call to action for their to be more monitoring and evaluation regarding distribution of sanitary pads. Follow and support Umande Trust through their social media pages: @Umande_Trust on Twitter and Umande Trust Facebook page and mine Follow My First Time across social media here: Instagram: @MyFirstTimeStories Facebook: My First Time Stories