Khadija Cares Foundation raises funds to provide 1,000 girls with eco-friendly menstrual products
The Khadija Cares Foundation has raised funds to provide approximately 1,000 girls and women in selected rural communities across the country with eco-friendly menstrual products such as menstrual cups, reusable pads, and period underwear.
This will be in addition to the thousands of girls and women already provided with the eco-friendly menstrual products by the Foundation.
The provision of the eco-friendly menstrual products follows the mobilization of some GHS 380,000 during a Charity Golf Fundraiser event held at the Achimota Golf Club by the Foundation on May 18, 2024.
The amount raised was nearly double the initial target of GHS 200,000.
“All the funds raised from this fundraising event will be used to purchase environmentally sustainable menstrual products for women and girls across all regions in the country.
“We are already planning to go to schools and communities across the country, particularly in the Volta, Upper East, and Upper West Regions to donate to some 1,600 girls and women, and hopefully with the amount raised here today, we will be able to do more,” averred Founder of the Khadija Cares Foundation, Khadija Duker.
Addressing the issue of taxes on sanitary pads, Ms Khadija Duker quipped the taxes on sanitary pads are high making them expensive even for the country’s working class despite the recent repeal of taxes on locally-produced sanitary pads by the Government.
“Sanitary pads are really expensive even for the working class, so imagine those who are out there in the rural areas and can’t afford it. We have girls in rural areas who will trade sex for pads, it’s not right so we have to do something about it,” she added.
According to Ms Duker, it is her hope that in the next decade, the Foundation will have eradicated period poverty with every girl and woman having access to eco-friendly menstrual products.
“It is my hope that we eradicate period poverty over the next decade and that girls and women would not have to suffer for menstrual products, they have them and are able to use them, especially the reusable ones,” she noted.
The eco-friendly menstrual products especially the menstrual cup provided by the Khadija Cares Foundation is able to last for 10 years, this means that girls and women with the menstrual cup will not have to buy sanitary pads or products for a whole decade.
Sixteen-year-old student of St Johns Grammar and beneficiary, Julian Afi Amezado, expressed her gratitude to the Foundation for the menstrual cup asserting she no longer needs to spend money to buy sanitary pads.
The Khadija Cares Foundation has so far donated over 3,000 eco-friendly menstrual products to girls and women across Ghana.
