TemboHeart Project for Girls & Women in Tanzania
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Education — attending and staying in school — empowers girls to make their own life and health decisions. To help achieve this, the TemboHeart Project provides reusable menstrual kits and necessary health education to girls and women in Tanzania. Inadequate access to Menstrual Health and Hygiene (MHH) resources is an overwhelming problem in sub-Saharan Africa where girls miss school during their periods and often drop out, leaving them vulnerable to the dangers of early marriage and childbirth.
In Tanzania, more than 40 percent of girls report that the lack of menstrual products is a contributing factor to missing school. Girls would rather miss school than suffer embarrassment or shame from leaking during their periods. [1] Period poverty can lead to physical health problems. Without access to pads or tampons, girls may resort to using dirty rags or leaves during their periods. This can cause infections and other medical problems, especially in countries where female genital mutilation (FGM) still takes place. [2]
2023 TemboHeart Project goal total: $3000
Distribute reusable menstrual kits and provide health information to:
• 40 girls at Lemara Primary School in Arusha. We have distributed kits there two times in the past years and the school leaders are eager participants in the sessions.
• 40 girls at Enalepo Primary School in Arusha. We distributed kits there in 2021 and several girls shared their stories with us.
• 50 girls at Endulen Primary School, a Maasai village school located in the remote Ngorongoro Conservation Area. This is a new school for TemboHeart to visit.
• 50 Maasai women near Endulen, a Maasai village called Misigyo also located in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. We have visited Misigyo three times in the past and the women in this remote village are so grateful to receive kits and health information not normally available to them.
— Purchase 180 kits @ $12.50 each: $2250
New this year
Address the importance of educating boys about menstruation and reproductive health with a class session for 50 schoolboys at Endulen Primary School. The organization Days for Girls International provides a new curriculum called Men Who Know that my project partner Lemali will teach. [3] As a trial project idea, I would like to create a small kit for the boys.
— Create 50 kits for boys with one pair underwear, washcloth, soap at $4 = $200
Additional Expenses
• transportation, fuel and permit within Arusha and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area: $250
• Presenter stipends for three sessions with girls and one with boys: $160
Print presentation flip chart and small flyer for boys’ session: $50
• GoFundMe fees: approximately $90
— Total: $550
Menstrual Health is a Fundamental Right
We now know that an estimated 800 million people lack access to menstrual products and adequate facilities for menstrual health.
“Poor menstrual health and hygiene undercuts fundamental rights – including the right to work and go to school – for women, girls and people who menstruate,” reports the United Nations Sexual and Reproductive Health Agency. “It worsens social and economic inequalities. Insufficient resources to manage menstruation, as well as patterns of exclusion and shame, undermine human dignity.” [4]
According to World Data, Tanzania is one of 47 least developed countries — countries at the lowest end of the poverty scale with the lowest level of development. [5] Only recently has legislation been introduced to allow pregnant girls and mothers to continue going to school. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that approximately 12 million girls aged 15–19 years give birth each year in developing regions. While adolescent birth rates in girls 15-19 years have declined in several regions worldwide, sub-Saharan Africa continues to have one of the highest rates globally at 99.4 births per 1000 women. [6]
Menstruation Reduces Girls’ Academic Performance
Menstruation affects girls' education with reduced school attendance, class discontinuation, reduced attentiveness and psychological impacts. [7]
Class attendance is impacted by:
• lack of access to sanitary pads due to low income and severity of menstrual symptoms
• lack of encouragement from parents and teachers
• girls’ dread of the durability and effectiveness of the materials used
• fear of shame and stigmatization at school during menstruation
Girls are Impacted by Boys’ Attitudes on Menstruation
Boys form an important group of menstrual health and hygiene stakeholders. Data shows that boys often insult or laugh at girls especially when they notice menstrual stains. These attitudes fuel the feelings of shame and stigmatization among girls during menstruation. Boys either ignore or do not understand that menstruation is a normal biological process when they make fun of and/or verbally harass girls who accidentally stain skirts with blood due to the poor durability of menstrual materials used. [8]
Anja Benshaul-Tolonen from the African Journal of Medical Reports, September 2021, writes that the “surveying of male and female students across four secondary schools in Tanzania revealed that another factor must be considered: period teasing. Teasing is common according to both girls and boys and affects girls’ presence, participation and concentration in the classroom. For boys, teasing is generally rooted in peer pressure and home-sphere social norms that stigmatize periods.”
[Our study confirms that] “positive forces that can be leveraged: 35 percent of boys report that boys tease because they are immature or don’t understand; 77 percent would intervene by talking to the boy they saw teasing and 4 percent would talk to the girl in private. The overwhelming majority of adolescent boys do not condone period teasing and would take action to ensure their female peers’ safety.” [9]
What Does a Reusable Menstrual Kit Contain?
The kits are always received with smiles and excited giggles of surprise at such a gift. In a country where second or third-hand clothing and undergarments are the norm, the girls and women love that everything in the kit is new and just for them. The carry bag and absorbent liner pads are sewn from brightly colored cloth to camouflage staining and unfold to look like a washcloth so they can dry outside in the sun without causing embarrassment. The shields contain a waterproof liner that easily snaps into place. Studies show that the kits last up to three years, are comfortable and work well in a variety of settings.
TemboHeart purchases locally manufactured kits in Tanzania that incorporate the Days for Girls enterprise guidelines. Days for Girls is an international organization that “increases access to menstrual care and education by developing global partnerships, cultivating Social Entrepreneurs, mobilizing volunteers and innovating sustainable solutions that shatter stigma and limitations for women and girls.” [10]
Reusable Pads are Better for the Earth
Reusable menstrual products are more sustainable and better for the earth. A few facts:
• An individual uses about 11,000 disposable pads and/or tampons in a lifetime
• Conventional sanitary pads contain up to 90% plastic and a pack of menstrual pads is equivalent to four plastic bags
• Most tampons contain chemicals and, while the products sit in landfills, the chemicals are soaked up by the earth and released as pollution into groundwater and air.
Creating a Menstrual Health Project in Tanzania
While visiting Tanzania in 2015, I learned how poverty and lack of access to menstrual supplies meant girls used unhealthy items to manage their periods: newspaper, corn husks, rags, or worse… or they stayed home and waited. The menstrual cycle, pregnancy, birth control and diseases are not discussed in school education and are often taboo topics at home.
Over the years, I’ve met hundreds of school girls and women in Tanzania, and the need for basic sanitary supplies and education about the menstrual cycle reaches across public and private schools, city and rural villages and all ages from first menstruation to mothers with several children.
When I began researching solutions for the lack of sanitary supplies for girls and women in rural Tanzania, I found it difficult to learn how prevalent the issue was and what alternatives were available. Concepts such as menstrual health management, period poverty (where low-income people struggle to afford menstrual products and have limited access to water and sanitation services), societal shame and the importance of clean, private facilities were long overlooked areas of research.
When I came across the idea of reusable menstrual kits, I knew that they could provide a piece to the puzzle of this enormous issue. My project partner in Tanzania and I created TemboHeart and first distributed kits and health information in 2016. Now in our eighth year, our 2023 fundraiser goals continue to focus on the importance of providing kits and education to girls and women in Tanzania.
Today, more than four million search results for “menstrual health" show that our awareness is creating innovative solutions as well as sustainable methods healthier for our environment. Organizations working to improve menstrual health education and related human rights concerns use comprehensive approaches that combine education and menstrual health management appropriate for specific cultures and environments.
Menstrual Hygiene Day is one example of a growing worldwide awareness of this issue. Their vision includes a world where no one is held back because they menstruate, a world where menstruation can be managed safely, hygienically, with confidence and without shame. [11]
The United Nations’ International Day of the Girl focuses attention on issues that matter to girls and ways to have their voices heard. Girls around the world continue to face unprecedented challenges to their education, their physical and mental wellness and the protections they need for a life without violence. COVID-19 and climate change have worsened existing burdens on girls around the world and worn away important gains made over the last decade. With adversity, however, comes resourcefulness, creativity, tenacity and resilience. The world's 600 million adolescent girls have shown time and again that, given the skills and the opportunities, they can be the change-makers driving progress in their communities, building back stronger for everyone. [12]
Who Provides the Educational Curriculum for Our Meetings?
The educational portion of TemboHeart’s kit distributions is provided by several people in Tanzania who have been working with us since we began our project in 2016.
• Lemali Sabore is my project partner, and he lives with his mother and two daughters in Endulen village in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Lemali is Maasai and grew up with many younger sisters so he is comfortable talking to the girls and women in a variety of settings. He has studied the curriculum with me as well as with Dr. Mameso Frederick.
• Dr. Mameso Frederick is a long-time physician at the Endulen Hospital. Also Maasai, she is an advocate of women’s rights in Tanzania, a country where women have been marginalized for generations. She speaks with authority to the girls and women and the respect they have for her as a female doctor is apparent in our meetings. She appreciates that TemboHeart includes education with the kits since schools don’t teach women’s health and menstrual health information is often taboo in families.
• Nayeku Sabore is Lemali’s cousin and, as she is fluent in both spoken and written English, is helpful in my communications. She often helps present information and demonstrate using the kits and is our photographer when I’m not able to be in Tanzania.
• Lynn Marlowe: Since most of our meetings are held in either Swahili or Maa (the Maasai language), my input is limited unless we are visiting English-speaking schools. I photograph and connect with the girls who want to share their stories. I often interview the girls and find their stories and ideas to be valuable contributions to our project.
• School principals and teachers join our meetings and contribute to both content and distribution. Lemali communicates with them several times before the meetings to review content and expectations.
Where Do We Distribute Kits?
Endulen is one of several Maasai villages in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, a UNESCO World Heritage site in northern Tanzania that covers more than 8,292 square kilometers (5,152 miles). According to UNESCO, the area includes “vast expanses of highland plains, savanna, savanna woodlands and forests. Established in 1959 as a multiple land use area, with wildlife coexisting with semi-nomadic Maasai pastoralists practicing traditional livestock grazing, it includes the spectacular Ngorongoro Crater, the world’s largest caldera.”
Arusha is a town located at the base of Mount Meru and a gateway to safari destinations. Africa's highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro is 100 kilometers northeast. Tourism is a major part of Arusha’s economy as the city is located near some of the greatest national parks and game reserves in Africa including Serengeti National Park, Kilimanjaro National Park, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Arusha National Park, Lake Manyara National Park and Tarangire National Park. This bustling city is filled with markets, street vendors, workers and shops.
What’s in a Name?
Tembo is the Swahili word for elephant and these intelligent, family-oriented mammals are literally big-hearted — the average elephant heart weighs 26-46 pounds (12-21 kg). I admire the elephant’s matriarchal society and the way they care for each other. For me, TemboHeart means taking care of our world community and each other, however close or far away. When you support projects that create positive social change in the world, your big-heartedness can directly impact the direction of someone’s life.
View my Africa photographs on Instagram
Footnotes
[1] Tanzania National Institute for Medical Research NIMR, 2021. Menstrual Health Country Snapshot (pdf).
“Men and boys are crucial partners in efforts to shatter the stigma and limitations associated with menstruation and often influence decision making.”
[7] UNICEF’s Menstrual Health and Hygiene Among Schoolgirls in Tanzania research report, June 2020 (pdf).
[8] UNICEF’s Menstrual Health and Hygiene Among Schoolgirls in Tanzania research report, June 2020 (pdf).
[9] International Scholars Journal, African Journal of Medical Reports, September 2021: Adolescent boys’ attitudes toward menstruation and implications for adolescent girls’ access to education in Tanzania.
Anja Benshaul-Tolonen, Department of Economics, Columbia University, New York City, USA
[10] Days for Girls advances menstrual equity, health, dignity and opportunity for all.
Poor menstrual health and hygiene undercuts fundamental rights – including the right to work and go to school – for women, girls and people who menstruate.
The United Nations’ International Day of the Girl focuses attention on issues that matter to girls and ways to have their voices heard.
Organizer
Lynn Marlowe
Organizer
Sacramento, CA