Transcript
JULIAN TUNG: This is just from talking to girls in a safe environment where it's just females in the room. We ask the male teachers to leave, and just ask girls 'what are the challenges that you face?' and they've been telling us this is an issue that comes up and there's a number of reasons for that. One is that it's a taboo, so it's not spoken about and then there's no facilities in the school. Often there's no sanitation facilities at all or the sanitation facilities that are there are very, very poor. So during the girls' menstrual cycle they don't have any facilities, they don't have any pads, they don't have any education around this. So we've been trying to address that, by installing some basic washing facilities in schools and then also speaking with the girls in a manner that allows them to speak openly or ask questions freely and that has sort of opened it and helped break the taboo and we're also speaking to the boys as well, so that we're helping to challenge this topic.
SALLY ROUND: So the toilets have been redesigned to deal with the problem?
JT: Yes, so it's a basic ventilated improved pit latrine which is just basically a hole in the ground with a vent in it. It's very common basic technology but we've just installed some basic washing facilities inside the pit latrine, so it's nothing expensive, it's nothing complicated. But what that does is it gives the girls some privacy to go in and wash themselves, wash their reusable sanitary pads in privacy.
SR: And how much was their education being impacted beforehand?
JT: So they're telling us they're missing a few days of school every month because of this. A lot of the girls are. So that has a huge impact. If we can encourage girls to continue coming to school during their menstrual cycle then they'll get more schooling. And it's not just girls. If sanitation improves ... often children miss school because they have diarrhoea or other water-borne diseases ... so the idea is if we improve sanitation that we are supporting children's education as well.
SR: How big a problem is this in Vanuatu and the wider Pacific?
JT: Well there's not a lot of research done on it so we're really going on speaking to girls ourselves and I think one of the reasons why there's not a lot of information on it is because it's been such a taboo topic. You know in schools it doesn't generally go into planning. When they're planning facilities, it doesn't go into ... when they're talking to children and asking them some of the challenges they face ... often it's something that's just glossed over or ignored. Particularly, if males are the ones who are designing sanitation facilities in schools, they may not think of (it) so it's about communicating with the children themselves and asking them their needs. We'd like this to grow and we're encouraging the girls themselves to become champions for menstrual hygiene and encouraging their community to help break the taboo as well, so we'd like this to spread as a standard approach to sanitation.
