Girl Talk with the Methodist School

Despite the importance of reproductive health and menstrual hygiene management in the lives of teenage girls, these issues are often overlooked. For many of us, if the way these topics were treated in our High School class was anything at all, it probably left us more confused than confident.  Sadly, there are still many parts of the world, including Ghana, where these issues are shrouded in secrecy and shame; social taboos continue to put girls down; they are forced to marry early, cannot go to school because of their periods and suffer genital mutilation as a way to control their sexuality

As part of our community service projects, Mrs. Barbara Deveney, Principal of the International School of Ahafo, has piloted a class dubbed “Girl Talk” at the Methodist School to throw light on these issues. The target group for this project is girls between the ages of 11 to 16.

The ultimate aim of this class is to empower girls by giving them autonomy over their bodies, choices, rights, relationships and education.  By giving girls an honest sexual education, we arm them with the tools they need for life. 

For the past six weeks, Mrs. Deveney has made weekly trips to the Methodist School and spoken to a total of sixty (60) girls from Class 6 to Junior High School. These brave souls did not only muster the courage to discuss such tabooed topics but kept asking all kinds of questions that would have earned them the “bad girl” label out of that class. They were also given sanitary towels to support their menstrual hygiene efforts.

If we can empower at least one girl to face the challenges of adolescence headlong and to fight for their future, then the mission will have been accomplished.