The Girls of Chamagaha Primary School

The girls at Chamagaha Primary School were doing poorly in school because complications from their menstrual cycles kept them out of the classroom and stuck at home. Agnes, 16, remembers the embarrassment she experienced after having her first period in class. She was forced to go home because the school didn’t have clean, private toilets with indoor water access. Many girls like Agnes were ridiculed out of school due to embarrassment from their menstrual cycles. With WaterAid’s help, a new bathroom was established for the girls and in turn their academic performances improved dramatically. No longer would the girls have to flee when their monthly cycles came around. They could tend to their business in the bathroom and return to class within a few minutes.

Curator’s note: The following is an excerpt of Chamagaha Primary School students’ stories as told to WaterAid staff on October 13, 2016.

“It was Friday,” Agnes said. “I was in fifth grade. We were in the middle of a class and my friend, Violet, who was sitting behind me, called me in a whispered voice, ‘Agnes, Agnes.’ I turned. She said, ‘Agnes you’ve got a problem.’ I didn’t know what she meant, but then I looked around and realised that others that were sitting behind me were also looking at me. Then some boys that sat behind me started laughing and the others just followed suit even if they didn’t know what it was about. Confused, I turned to Violet again and she said, ‘Your skirt,’ and passed me her pullover to wrap it around my waist. That’s when I saw it. I just broke down in tears where I was sitting. I was just shocked and confused. Nobody had taught me how to handle it. Then the head girl told the head teacher that I was crying and the head teacher came and calmed me down. After I calmed down, she told me to go home. That’s what girls did back then; we stayed back home during our periods because there was nothing the school could do to help us through those days. No napkins, no toilets, no water. I went home embarrassed.”

“It was commonplace to see a girl in the morning and then she has disappeared after the break,” the head teacher said. “Every month, girls missed a minimum of three school days because we had neither water nor toilet where they could manage their menstrual hygiene. And that had implications in their performances. You would see fair competition between boys and girls during the early grades then as the girls got to their menstrual age, their performance would suddenly drop.”

For the head teacher that was difficult.

“As a teacher, to see a girl doing less than the boys just because she is a girl was painful enough, and as a woman, it was even more painful,” she said. “The government realized the problem and we started getting sanitary napkins, but then where would the girls turn to for private space and where would they find water to wash with after managing their menstrual hygiene? That’s the gap this project filled for us.”

Girls at Chamagaha Primary School now have clean, private toilets and a girls room with indoor access to water where they can wash, change sanitary pads and go back to class.

Now each girl gets a pack of eight sanitary napkins a month. If any girl goes to school unprepared and feels her period, she goes to the head teacher’s office and says, “Head teacher, the visitors have come.” That’s how they call it there. Then she takes that to the special girls’ room and within minutes she is back in class.

Over the past year, the girls’ performance has improved remarkably. Girls were nowhere near the top in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades. This year, Agnes ranked second for grade eight. This has never been the case at Chamagaha Primary School.

“I have seen what I can do when I compete with boys on level ground,” Agnes said. “I actually believe that what boys can do, girls can do better. I am not shy anymore. When we take the monthly sanitary napkins from the head teacher’s office, boys try to tease us saying, ‘Is that your monthly ration of bread?’ I say, ‘Yes, so what?’ I am not shy in front of boys anymore. I want to be a news anchor in the future. I like attention and since I am not shy anymore, I think I will do well.”

“Do you think you’ll make it?” I asked.

“Yes!” she said as she looked at me with how-dare-you-doubt-me eyes.

Photo credit: WaterAid/Behailu Shiferaw