Tonto Dikeh Set To Create Awareness On Menstrual Hygiene As The World Mark World Menstrual Hygiene Day 28th Of May

In commemoration of the Global Menstrual Hygiene Day, the Tonto Dike Foundation has concluded plans to visit Government Girls Secondary School Dutse and Suleja Prisons in Abuja and Niger State respectively, to educate them on the importance of hygiene, especially menstrual hygiene.

Menstrual Hygiene Day is an annual awareness day which comes up on the 28th May, to highlight the importance of good menstrual hygiene management. It was initiated by the German-based Non-Governmental Organization, WASH United in 2014 and aims to benefit women and girls worldwide. The decision of the founder of the Foundation, Tonto Dike, to visit the prisons is informed by the cultural beliefs and menstrual myths in the society and how they affect women or the girl child.

Many such ideas and beliefs have been proven wrong by science, but they are still followed in current societies. These myths tend to suggest that menstruation is a disease or a curse and it leads up to beliefs like a womans body is polluted when she is experiencing periods. Such beliefs and myths cause discrimination against women and at times, can lower your self-esteem and opportunities for growth. The Tonto Dike Foundation finds this situation to be a problem for the society in general because, women are the better half of every society!

The Foundation intends to aid over six hundred women and girls with free sanitary towels, cutting across the Girls Secondary Schools and the Female inmates of the Prison. This is just one of the numerous philanthropic gestures of the Foundation, having empowered a lot of destitute women in the recent past, as well as offering scholarship and empowerment schemes to victims of domestic violence and rape.