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NAIROBI, KENYA: Grand Challenges Canada has announced projects extending innovative forms of health-related lifelines to some of humanity’s most vulnerable women and girls.
The undertakings in Africa Kenya (5 projects), Rwanda, Sierra Leone (2), Togo, and Uganda (3), Asia (Afghanistan, Myanmar, Pakistan, and the Philippines), the Caribbean (Haiti), and Central America (Nicaragua) embrace a range of creative products and services to advance gender equality, promote human dignity, and empower women and girls worldwide.
The two projects receiving large “Transition to Scale” investments will empower young women and girls, and protect and preserve their human dignity, through innovative approaches to improving menstrual, sexual, and reproductive health.
In Kenya, the Bold Idea for Girls project will seek to reduce HIV infections among 500 vulnerable adolescent girls and young women in informal settlements through a unique combination of HIV/STI education, gender and life skills programming, and vocational and entrepreneurial skills training.
In an earlier pilot, the project was successful in improving knowledge and awareness of HIV and risky sexual behaviours and practices, increasing reported condom use, as well as sustainable income levels among girls in Nairobi’s Mukuru slum.
In Rwanda, an estimated 225,000 adolescent girls in rural areas will gain access to affordable, high-quality menstrual pads made from locally-sourced banana fibres, and a further 7,300 adolescents will receive in-depth menstrual health education through schools and non-governmental organisations.
The combination of pads and education will help equip girls to tackle questions about menstruation and discuss their bodies, sexuality, and other areas critical to the healthy growth and empowerment of young women.
“The conditions facing women and girls in low- and middle-income countries almost defy belief but constitute daily reality for millions. Grand Challenges Canada is proud to work with the Government of Canada to enable innovators with bold new ideas to test concepts that may hold the key to a better life for women and girls worldwide, and to scale-up the innovative approaches to empowering women and girls that are already showing promising results,” said Peter A. Singer, Chief Executive Officer of Grand Challenges Canada.
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