Always Sanitary To Donate 500,000 Pads To NGOs
Procter and Gamble (P&G), manufacturers of Always Sanitary Pad has initiated plans to use its ApadAgirl Initiative to make more girls aware of the importance of using sanitary pads as against unhealthy alternatives.
Reports from Euromonitor indicate that, while per capital usage of sanitary protection in volume terms among 12-54 year-old women was recorded at well over 200 units per year in the Western world in 2015, it was only 28 units per year in Nigeria. The implication of this is that only 3 out of every 10 Nigerian girls and women use sanitary pad, while others resort to unhealthy options.
In order to promote the hygienic pad adoption, Always will donate over 500,000 sanitary pads to Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to help reach girls in need, as part of its #ApadAgirl initiative, aimed at encouraging and sensitizing girls between 11 and 16 years of age as well as young women between 18 – 24 years of age on the importance of using Sanitary pads as against other unhealthy options for their menstrual cycle.
The Communications Manager for Always Nigeria, Tomiwa Ajewole, explained that the purpose of the initiative is to provide aid to girls and women across the country who have little or no access to sanitary pads while sensitizing them on the need to adopt usage of sanitary pads. According to him, “Each year for the past 6 years, we have reached over 1 million girls between the ages of 11 to 16 with free hygiene education and free pads through our Always School program. It is our vision that by the year 2025, every Nigerian girl would use a pad for her monthly period,” Ajewole added.
Speaking on pad usage in Nigeria, Dr Samuel Akinjopo of Murtala Muhammed Specialist Hospital, Kano, stated that the importance of using healthy solutions like sanitary pads cannot be overemphasized. According to him, “Girls using unhealthy alternatives become exposed to several gynaecological infections which are generally called the reproductive tract infections, such as vaginitis, cervicitis, endometritis and several complications along that line, especially at this period of their immune susceptibility.
The campaign is open to all non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Nigeria who work with girls and women or who run a pad donation initiative and are passionate about getting pads across to girls in need. The NGOs will be required to send in a proposal to [email protected] and also post a public video on their social media handles stating their motivations and mission using the hashtag #apadagirl.
Always is inviting NGOs to begin sending in their proposals to stand the chance of receiving pads to seed out to girls in need. Winners will be selected across all states in Nigeria and directed to the pickup location in Lagos.
