Aniga Womens Initiative, Kisumu, Kenya

Ethical Giving has supported the Aniga project in partnership with Global Footsteps, helping to provide sanitary pads and other hygiene esssentials including soap and underwear for girls in school. 

Rural communities in Kisumu County, Kenya, face many poverty-related challenges including access to sanitation, clean water and education.   Aniga Womens Initiative addresses one of these in particular by supporting girls at school with sanitary products; the overriding objective of the project is to ensure that girls in Kisumu County will not have to miss school simply because they are menstruating. 

Female students face great challenges in terms of hygiene and sanitation. For girls who are menstruating, there are difficulties posed by the inability to afford sanitary towels as well as cultural taboos around menstruation. As a result, many girls miss on average four days of school every month which is over a month in a year, meaning they fall behind in class and sometimes even drop out of school altogether. This is an added challenge to the already existing problems that lead to the high dropout rate of female students in primary and secondary schools.