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Hygienic care for girls and women in South Africa

Cooperative Project of the Technical University Delft and the Medical Knowledge Institute (MKI)
 

Oostvoorne/ Delft, March 23rd 2010 - - The Medical Institute – ‘Prevention through Education’ – is soon to start a new project: “Your Hygiene – Your Health” via its Health Information Centers in South Africa. Another project, run by four students from the Technical University (TU) Delft (NL), closely links to the MKI-project. The TU Delft project investigates possibilities to increase “the acceptance, the availability and the affordability of menstrual hygienic means for women and girls in developing countries”.The students - Suze Gehem, Floor van Goudoever, Albertien Greijdanus and Judith van der Werf – are master students of Industrial Design at the TU Delft. They found this challenging development project for their ‘Integral Design Project’ thanks to the Vrouw & Verband Foundation (roughly translated: the Women & Bandage/ Connection Foundation). For years now this foundation, currently also involved in this project as subject matter expert, demands attention for and research problems that girls and women experience in regard of menstrual hygiene. According to Dr. Harold Robles, President of the MKI, the current situation around this issue of menstrual hygiene is far from optimal. “Due to a lack of knowledge woman also use unhygienic solutions to get them through their menstruation. Many times this leads to vaginal infections and inflammations, sometimes with death as a result. Furthermore, women are restricted in running their everyday life during their menstruation period. “We have found disturbing results during our preliminary investigations”, state the students from Delft, “for example that girls are missing school because menstrual protection is simply too expensive; a package of sanitary towels charged at European prices. Also many times the sanitary facilities are in such a poor state which causes the changing of, or hygienic use of menstrual means difficult. Many children have to make a choice: being mortified or missing school”.During a menstruation period, one out of ten African schoolgirls do not attend school. The sanitary facilities at schools are poor and often the girls do not posses the means to protect themselves. When a girl stays home for four days out of every four weeks, it results in an absence of 10 – 20 percent of the total schooldays. This problem also occurs for women, causing them not to be able to work for five days per month, while most people need this most.
The students are very motivated to deal with this menstruation problem in a social and economically durable manner. It will be investigated through education how girls and women can be made aware of this problem. At the same time the students will research how and in what form the girls and women can obtain affordable and available means for their hygienic care. A solution could be that the target group, aided by a simple machine and local materials, can manufacture those aids themselves.This line of thought links up perfectly with the objectives and the work of the Medical Knowledge Institute that has years of experience in the field of knowledge transfer around health care in southern Africa. Among other things, through four MKI Health Information Centers and through a growing number of Health Information Satellites (the latter in cooperation with Clover Mama Africa). Early March, the four students left for Africa for two months in order to do extensive research in cooperation with the local population and through the Health Information Centers of the MKI. In the end, this has to lead to effective and affordable solutions to the current problems.