BLP Celebrates 2023 Menstrual Hygiene With Multiple Workshops in Cameroon and Sierra Leone

BLP Celebrates 2023 Menstrual Hygiene Day With Multiple Workshops in Cameroon and Sierra Leone

Welcome to Bright Light Projects month of June 2023 newsletter,

Bright Light Projects under its flagship program titled Girls Shall Rise organized workshops in Cameroon and Sierra Leone to facilitate education and understanding on this year’s theme “ Making Menstruation a normal fact of life by 2030”

Without proper education, some women actually think menstruation is a #taboo. As part of celebrating Menstrual Hygiene day 2023 BLP Cameroon teams in Buea, Douala and Bamenda organized workshops centered on awareness and education around menstrual hygiene.

Thursday May 25, 2023 in Buea

Bright Light Projects in partnership with the Women Empowerment and the Family Centre Buea, organized a successful one-day workshop to empower young girls on how to prevent gender-based violence, understanding sexual and reproductive health rights, and menstrual hygiene. The event took place at the premises of the Women Empowerment and the Family Centre in Buea on the 25th of May 2023, the South West Region of Cameroon.

This workshop was also part of BLP's flagship programs ‘Girls Shall Rise’. The ongoing flagship program is aimed at providing vulnerable girls with vocational skills and empowering most especially Internally Displaced Girls, commercial sex workers and survivors of gender-based violence with psychological support, counselling and basic education on the prevention of gender-based violence. BLP beneficiaries undertaking training at Cameroon Opportunities Industrialization Centre (COIC) and at Royalty World were part of this workshop with a total of about 65 girls and women. All partcipants receives sanitary pads at the end of the workshop

Friday May 26, 2023 in Bamenda

A workshop organized in partnership with Civitas Cameroon with focus on breaking the silence and raise awareness on the negative societal norms regarding menstruation as well as break the taboos and end the stigma associated with menstruation. Raising

awareness about the challenges girls and women have in accessing menstrual products, education about menstruation and period friendly sanitary facilities in fighting period poverty.

Key presentations focused on premenstrual syndrome, premenstrual dysphoric disorders, what is menstrual hygiene? Changes young girls face during menstruation, menstrual Hygiene management, and more. Participants went home with sanitary kits offered by BLP with assistance form Civitas Cameroon

May 25, 2023 in Makeni, Sierra Leone

Bright Light Projects Sierra Leone (BLPSL) organized a one day workshop on May 26, 2023. This was an educational workshop for BLP beneficiaries and the public within and around Bombali District on menstrual hygiene awareness. key stakeholders and other partners from the civil society and government line ministries were in attendance.

This workshop focused on menstrual hygiene basics including: what age, female reproductive system and menstrual cycle, body changes, good practice for girls and women, menstrual hygiene, use of pads and disposal. Workshop attendants were mostly young adolescent girls from secondary and high schools around the Makeni municipality.

Menstrual hygiene education and awareness is a vital ingredient for sustained growth especially in rural communities where social stigma is a main factor hindering young girls from exploiting the boundaries of their full potentials. For BLP, menstrual hygiene awareness, sexual and reproductive health rights is an ongoing campaign as one of our core areas of advocacy integrated into all of our programs.