Girls Empowerment: Training of Teachers with Femme International

At Made with Hope we are passionate about empowering girls, so as you can imagine we are really excited to announce the introduction of our Training of Teachers programme in 5 schools: Maweni, Majimoto, Mshikamano, Mzimuni and Marurani Primary School to support over 350 girls.

Made With Hope’s Training of Teachers (T.o.T) project is an exciting addition to our Girl Empowerment programme, aiming to support girls’ education and menstrual hygiene management (MHM).

Why is this project needed?

We believe that creating a safe space where teachers, parents and community groups appreciate and understand the value of Menstrual Hygiene Management will be a huge step towards empowering the girls at our partner schools. This project will encourage girls to engage in conversations about their own bodies, keep them in school during their cycle and promote the use of safe, hygienic and sustainable sanitary products.

Our experience shows that there exists a lack of understanding surrounding MHM for many young girls and limited resources available to them both at school and at home. Providing teacher training, and in doing so, an effective education for young girls, we can contribute to the future potential of so many more women.

Training teachers to deliver accurate education on puberty, reproductive anatomy, sexual health, body hygiene, menstruation, and menstrual management is essential to opening up conversations with students and encouraging girls to see menstruation as a natural function rather than something to hide.

More about this project

The project will be delivered through our partner organisation ‘Femme International’, who do amazing work empowering young girls and women in East Africa to break the taboo around their own periods. The classes will be facilitated by Femme International in our partner schools. We expect the impact of this project on our students, parents, community groups and teachers to be huge, and we are excited to see the effect it will have!

The T.o.T project will be carried out on the 14th and 15th December 2020 (2 x 8-hour training sessions). These sessions are designed to be practical and interactive, providing a platform for teachers to share their opinions and to ask important questions. Femme International provides teachers with training manuals to ensure consistency in the delivery of the curriculum to adolescents, parents and groups of women in our partner communities. The teachers in our partner schools are critical actors in our efforts to remove the taboo surrounding MHM. Therefore, providing them with a certificate and acknowledgement of their training reinforces the value of their work within our Girl Empowerment programme.

The aim of the training sessions is to provide teachers with the skills to deliver effective and accurate MHM and reproductive health education through the use of Femme International’s Twaweza curriculum.

“In Swahili, “twaweza” means “we can”, because this is a problem we can fix.”

— Femme International

Femme International, our project partner, inspiring mission is to break down cultural stigmas towards menstruation, therefore reinforcing these values in our partner schools is essential for our female student’s future prospects.

Expected Impact of the project

The purpose of T.o.T is to see teachers in rural and hard to reach communities act as ambassadors of Femme International’s mission, and ambassadors of a global movement towards girl’s equality and empowerment. We hope to see teachers act as a source of information and a safe space to initiate the conversation on MHM and sexual health.

A key part of breaking down taboos is engaging with all community members. Therefore, encouraging teachers to deliver training to parents and community groups as well as both female and male students is hugely helpful in this movement. Femme International reports on the importance of including male teachers and local men and boys in the conversation on menstruation as the most effective way of progressing towards gender equality.

In addition to the impact that education will have on our partner schools and communities, Femme International’s Twaweza Curriculum focuses on sustainable MHM. The distribution of menstrual cups and reusable pads to students in our partner schools alongside effective education will significantly reduce health problems caused by the use of unhygienic and disposable sanitary products.

In our partner communities, where education and training have previously been inaccessible, we hope to see teachers embrace the skills they gain in the T.o.T project and to push for a more equitable future for their girls.

Follow us on social media to keep up to date with the positive developments this incredible project hopes to have!

Written by Evie Gilbert