Lack of Sanitary Pads is a Threat to the Health of Kenya as a Whole

The hype about how brilliant the introduction of 'free' primary education has been in Kenya continues six years on but the reality is that most parents who couldn't afford primary education before 2003 still can't afford it. The hidden costs are endless and include levies for parent teacher associations, uniforms and overpriced books, equipment, 'extra' tuition, etc. A colleague recently pointed out to me that parents need to pay for their child's desk every year. There must be quite a surplus of desks in schools by now.

While enrollment figures are high for state schools, they have dropped in many private schools and the figures for attendance and completion, even of primary school, are not so brilliant. Numbers of girls completing primary school and going on to secondary school are particularly poor. There are many reasons for girls not completing their education, including the belief that as girls will marry into another family, it is not economical to 'water ones neighbour's fields'.

But a study in Uganda suggests that many girls are dropping out of school as soon as they start menstruating. Schools are not equipped to deal with girls once they start menstruating, apparently. Lack of separate sanitary facilities for girls, and even lack of water, mean that they will often stay at home, either for the duration of their period or even for good.

The extremely high cost of sanitary pads mean that they are inaccessible to many girls. They have to use substitutes or stay at home. To put it in perspective, ten of the cheapest sanitary pads cost more than several days worth of the staple ground maize for a large family. The commonly advertised branded versions cost twice or three times as much and, because one or two of them are sometimes given out as promotional 'gifts', some people think they must always use this version to be really safe.

As well as having to teach sex education without talking about sex, teachers are also in the position where they are usually not trained to include classes about menstruation, either. Teaching about the whole field of sex, sexuality, reproduction, sexual health and sanitation is often considered to lead to immoral behaviour in young people. This can be blamed on taboo or cultural considerations but in fact, it often has more to do with political and religious leadership and funding sources for sex education and education as a whole.

In the end, large numbers of girls with little or no education means that large numbers of children will, in the future, also be brought up with little or no education, knowledge of sex or reproduction or even with the level of empowerment needed to change anything for the better. Continuing gender imbalances mean continuation of the status quo. That's a status quo where much of the population will never be able to attain a decent standard of living, while the more privileged continue to enjoy the great wealth that exists in Kenya (despite the best attempts of colonials, neo-colonials, multinationals and other assorted leeches).

The introduction of 'free' primary education was a little like some of the other initiatives that only aim to tackle one or two headline indicators. (In fact, any of the millennium development goals (MDG) would be additional examples.) School fees were abolished but immediately replaced with costs that mean parents still have to pay de facto fees. There are still far too few teachers and classrooms in many areas to provide decent levels of education.

When it comes to education relating to sex, reproduction, health, sanitation or anything like that, few teachers have been trained to provide these. And there is little to be gained from health and sanitation education when the health and sanitation facilities, even reliable supplies of clean water, are not available to the majority.

Successive governments, along with those who dream up international 'initiatives' don't seem to have noticed that basic needs are basic for the very reason that, without any one of them, people's standard of living is compromised. Children who have little or no food for much of the time will have retarded growth and mental development, poor health and a short life. Lack of sanitary facilities reduce health but this also reduces access to education and the efficacy of education. Basic needs are connected to each other, so you can't just make a list and tick them off as you create an 'initiative' that relates to each one.

Self Reliance Doesn’t Protect Against Unreliable Leaders

We have built a bigger parabolic cooker and are now waiting for a suitably sunny day to try it out. Some areas around here get sun all the time but the parabolic cooker is not very mobile. So we just have to wait for suitable conditions. Meantime, one of the things we are concerned about is safety. For a start, the concentrated light reflected from the device is very hard on the eyes and could potentially damage users' eyesight. We can use sunglasses but there's no guarantee that others will do the same, especially as some of the people around will not even be using the device but could still be affected.

There is also the issue of safety from burns. Parabolics heat things to very high temperatures. Some of the models I've found online depict a cooking pot at about chest height. If this pot were to be turned over by accident, the user could receive dangerous burns. I would prefer a model where the pot is low and where you can move the parabola without moving the pot and vice versa. This should reduce the possible dangers. We discussed this problem with other people experimenting with parabolic cookers and they agreed. We resolved to suspend the pot from a line or large tripod, rather than trying to build a tripod inside the parabola.

One of the community support groups is so interested in solar cooking that they have asked for a workshop on making the cookers. We will be doing that in the next few weeks, once we have all the materials. The members of the support groups themselves need to bring the materials because there is very little funding available. But it is a good exercise to get them to source the materials as most of them should be cheap or even free. One of the advantages of solar cooking is increased sustainability and self reliance. Therefore, recycled materials are preferable to new materials. I suspect people here will be good at finding cheap and free materials!

The same people who have shown such interest in solar cookers also raised questions about home made, reusable sanitary pads. A friend kindly sent me some materials on how to make these. I also found various websites dedicated to this issue. Sanitary pads are so expensive here, compared to people's ability to buy them, that it is no wonder many never use them. This is a particular problem for young girls as they have no spending power at all. They often miss school for a few days every month, which is quite unnecessary. However, there are safety aspects relating to making reusable sanitary pads as well and I hope we can include resolutions to this problem as part of the project.

We're still trying to find out about getting people to produce briquettes from organic waste as a way of reducing use of wood and charcoal, which is expensive and in short supply. It's also time consuming to collect wood and make charcoal. We have plenty of instructions for the process but lack the devices that could mix the materials and compress the mixture into a suitably compact end product. We are in touch with people at Egerton University who may be able to help us. Ultimately, the process should be cheap and small scale, but as someone near here has already done some work on this area, we'd like to see that first.

We visited the local municipal dump to see what useful materials may be available there. Actually, there are many people in the dump, every day, picking up all the materials they can sell on for reuse. I think we need to spend more time finding out what reaches the dump, who is picking it up and selling it on, what materials never reaches the dump and what other recycling projects are currently taking place. There are lots of organisations here doing various things and few organisations seem to be aware of what others are doing. As we are trying to find tried and tested ways of reducing poverty and increasing self reliance, we need to know what others are doing in and around Nakuru. That is proving to be a difficult task!

There's a lot of talk about closing down the camps for internally displaced persons (IDP) which were set up as a result of the post election violence. It's all very well to get people to go back home but many don't wish to return to properties from which they were forcibly ejected. Many of the properties have been burned, looted and squatted by others. The government is giving many mixed messages about how much they will pay people to return home and what they will do for people who can't go back to where they were before. Also, the IDP camp in Nakuru consists of many small plots, all of which have been purchased by the residents. People have been there for nearly two years, they have made lives for themselves. They have set up kitchen gardens, shops, community groups and what not. The 'camp' is now a village in its own right and the current government plans seem like yet another forced eviction.

The support group that we are involved in at the IDP camp is interested in some of our projects and this area is in particular need of greater sustainability and self reliance. But people there are now wary of doing anything in an area that they may have to leave in the near future. There is even talk now about the next election and the possible displacement that may occur in the next few years. Far from trying to anticipate and prevent further politically motivated violence, politicians seem to be spending their time and energy planning their attack.