Help a Child: Provide Access to Water in Nigeria

Dear Friends, Family and Supporters of Serendipity,

During our projects in providing access to water for our children in our communities in Kano Nigeria, we found out some cross cutting issues which is a thing of concern for us and thus we decided that part of our WASH project we would inculcate this particular aspect to our goals which we started on World Menstrual Hygiene Day, 2023.

Menstruation is a natural and healthy part of life for most people who menstruate. However, in many countries, menstruation is stigmatized, taboo or riddled with myths. This affects the well-being, dignity and rights of women and girls who face challenges such as:

• Pain, cramps and discomfort during their periods
• Inability to attend school, work or social activities because of lack of sanitary supplies or facilities
• Exposure to infections, diseases or violence because of poor hygiene practices
• Loss of income or livelihood opportunities because of missed work days due to menstruation
• Discrimination, exclusion or violence because of their menstrual status

Another area that affects women above the age of 40 that our campaign will cover, is Menopausal women as they face discrimination due to urine incontinence, mood swings and hot flushes. 

According to UNICEF, more than 500 million women and girls worldwide lack access to affordable and quality menstrual products. Many more do not have access to clean water, toilets or waste disposal systems where they can safely manage their periods. These gaps have serious consequences for their health, education, empowerment and human rights.

That’s why we are focusing in this aspect of WASH to raise funds for a project that would improve menstrual health and hygiene in Nigeria. Menstrual Health Hygiene for Vulnerable Girls and Menopausal Women aims to provide menstrual products such as pads, or reusable cloth to women and girls who need them, safe spaces for menopausal women. It also aims to educate communities about the facts of menstruation and break the myths and taboos that surround it. It also aims to advocate for policies and practices that ensure menstrual health as a human right.

Menstrual Health Hygiene has already made an impact in Kano, Nigeria by distributing over 200 of menstrual products to 200 of women and girls in need. It has also trained over 10 of community volunteers who act as menstrual health ambassadors. It has also partnered with local businesses such as pharmacies, supermarkets or hotels that sell sanitary products at discounted prices.

However, there is still a lot more work to be done. We need your help to reach more women and girls who are suffering from period poverty. We need your help to scale up our impact and reach more communities in need. We need your help to create a lasting change in the way we think about menstruation.

You can follow us on our social media pages to learn more, follow us, like, comment and share our pages, https://www.facebook.com/serenhealthcare https://www.Instagram.com/serendipityHea1 https://www.twitter.com/serendipityHea1 https://www.LinkedIN.com/company/serendipity-healthcare-foundation and also our website http://ww.serendipityhealthcare.org.in

Best Regards,

Samirah Faruk

Links:

• Pictures and Reels
• Story on menstrual health
• Menstrual Health

Dear Friends, Family and supporters of Serendipity,

There has been a recent outbreak of Diarrhea and Dysentery in some of our communities in Kano, Nigeria of one child in five reported cases has died as a result of Diarrhea and Dysentery. The constant change in weather conditions has further exasperated the issue as access to lack safe clean drinking water forces our communities to source for water in ponds and streams and with the stoppage of the rains, the little water sourced are filled with insects, bugs and very dirty water.

The weather situation is worse off in Northern Nigeria because the rains are few and in between because our terrain is arid and dry. This is also affecting our livestock and crops as yield is low thus threatening food security. There is an urgent need to ensure our environment is safe thus we have to inculcate practices that are sustainable and clean.

As part of our project to provide drinking containers for our communities, we recently conducted a data survey on 12 female household owners and the results are as follows, an average age of 35 years, 91% of the women rear poultry and livestock in their houses, 50% of the houses have between 11 - 15 persons living together, 83.3 % responded that it was the children that go source for the water and thus makes them miss out on school, however, only 16.7% responded that they had cases of diarrhea and Dysentery amongst their children, 75% of the 16.7% who responded of these cases said it occurred weekly. Their major source of water is a hand pump located in the community center but which from our investigation is hard for the water to come out.

66.7% use local pot to store their drinking water but only 25% sanitize it before drinking the water and most of them said there was no need and did not think that drinking water should be sanitized.

Our most concern is to ensure that aside from providing access to water, our communities are taught on how to management their drinking water and to keep it stored in a clean container. Each household were given two water jugs in addition to what was currently being used and were told to use these water jugs more a sit was safe with a covering.. We also thus taught the women in the 12 households on how to store their water in containers, frequency on keeping it washed and clean and separating the use of same water for drinking and other chores.

This goes to show that much is needed to provide access to water, water management and hygiene education to each the mark of SDG Goal 6.     

Our next steps would be on monitoring and evaluation of more communities to see what has changed in their lives in terms of hygiene.

Follow our stories on our social media handles to be updated as we go along on Facebook/serenhealthcare, Instagram/serendipityHea1, Twitter/serendipityHea1 or our website on Https://www.serendipityhealthcare.org.in

See work we have done thus far in our links and pictures.

Thank you so much for your continued support as we want every child to have access to water and stay safe.

Your faithfully,

Adama Faruk

Links:

• Our Projects
• Our Projects
• Our Projects

• Data Collected (PDF)