Periods of change

At Kawaza Primary School in Ntchisi District, 16-year-old Cecilia (not her real name) no longer hides home when her period comes. Once a month, she used to miss classes for three or four days. Then, her school had no private space for girls to change and tidy up, and her family could not afford sanitary pads. This meant missing lessons, lagging behind classmates, and watching her confidence drain away.

“I used to miss classes as there was no safe space for adolescent girls like me to go and change. Sometimes, I would stain my uniform and just run home. It affected my lessons and my performance,” Cecilia recalls shyly.

Today, Cecilia walks to class without fear thanks to a local-led initiative championed by community stakeholders. Her school now has a small, temporary brick changing room, and she receives reusable sanitary pads produced locally.

A community’s resolve to keep girls in school

The change at Kawaza Primary began with a simple observation; too many empty seats when girls reached puberty. Teachers noticed a pattern. Every month, girls disappeared for a few days due to the absence of menstrual hygiene facilities and services, often returning embarrassed or exhausted from trying to catch up.

This according to Giston Moses Banda, the school’s Deputy Head Teacher inspired a collective decision to act.

“We sat down with the PTA, the mother group, and the community. We agreed to improve access to menstrual hygiene facilities and services after realizing that our girls were struggling during menstruation. The idea was to minimize school absenteeism,” Banda explains.

The community mobilized and constructed a temporary change room. On the other hand, the mother group took the lead on sanitary pads. Using small contributions from members, support from parents, and a portion of the School Improvement Grant (SIG) sanitation budget, they began sewing reusable sanitary pads for the girls.

The support has helped to lessen the hardships adolescent girls were facing and helped them to keep learning uninterruptedly.

“Since this arrangement started, it has helped a lot. Attendance among girls has improved, and their performance too. We are now seeing girls being selected to secondary school, something that rarely happened before,” Banda says.

Veronica Kabonga, the PTA Vice Chairperson, proudly agrees. She says improved menstrual hygiene has restored girls’ hygiene, well-being, self-esteem, dignity, and a hardworking spirit.

“As PTA and the mother group, we ensure that we assist the young girls where we can. Things are better if we compare with the past. It is satisfying seeing young girls performing well in class,” Kabonga says.

And it doesn’t stop there. Helping adolescent girls on menstrual hygiene is slowly becoming a community movement in this area. Outside the school setting, in the area of Village Headman Chisula 1, traditional authority is being used to challenge long-held silence and taboos.

“We have chosen women whose main responsibility is to educate young girls on menstruation. Menstrual hygiene was a taboo, but through these initiatives, we are debunking that. We want our girls to be free so they can pursue their studies freely,” Village Headman Chisula 1, says.

The fragile balance of progress

Despite these local successes at Kawaza Primary School, the reality on the ground is far from perfect. The progress feels tangible yet precarious.

The temporary structure, which has been used as a change room is no longer functional as one side of the wall fell.

On the other hand, the borehole, which serves the school and surrounding villages stands still. The dry season always drains its shallow well, forcing pupils to walk long distances looking for water. Without water, washing reusable pads becomes difficult, and hygiene suffers.

Pit latrines are also not enough to cater for the school population, an undignified reminder that every solution in rural schools still rest on shaky ground.

Banda, the school’s Deputy Head Teacher is concerned.

“If we can fix the water and latrine issues as well as renovate the change room or better, have a new modern one, we will be okay. But without support, this progress might fade,” Banda says.

A district’s shared struggle

What is happening at Kawaza Primary reflects a broader situation across Ntchisi District. In some schools, community driven initiatives have improved menstrual hygiene management while in others, girls still struggle without pads, water, or privacy.

According to Shadreck Chakwawa, the Ntchisi District Director of Education, the reality is stark. He estimates that less than 30 percent of schools in the district have adequate menstrual hygiene facilities. He says these conditions create barriers for girls, leading many to miss school or even drop out entirely.

“The general picture is not good as we have very poor sanitary conditions in our schools, except in very few of them. In most schools in the district, we do not have running water and changing rooms. It is a very difficult situation,” Chakwawa says.

Chakwawa says the situation generally affects the education of female learners negatively, forcing many of them to drop out of school, and the implication of this reach beyond sanitation.

“It is a disadvantage to the district and the country. While government is working hard to train human capital for the Malawi 2063 development blueprint, many girls are dropping out because of lack of menstrual support. This undermines that effort,” Chakwawa says.

He adds; “When girls leave school early, the consequences ripple far beyond classrooms. They get married young, without skills to support themselves. Their children also grow up in poverty. Thus, this creates a vicious cycle of poverty that hurts the district and the country.”

For Chakwawa, the priorities are clear.

“We need running water in all schools. Then we must build changing rooms and ensure every school has at least one female teacher to guide and counsel girls. If we can have development partners focusing on water, facilities, and training, we can make sure our girls stay in schools,” Chakwawa says.

A national problem

While girls like Cecilia are now able to attend classes without interruption due to the support they are getting, there are still countless girls across the country who continue to suffer in silence, missing classes, falling behind, and sometimes dropping out altogether.

Malawi menstrual hygiene situation in schools is marked by significant challenges, including lack of private facilities, unaffordable sanitary products, and scarcity of proper education.

Period poverty, the state where women and girls lack access to affordable or sufficient menstrual products, sanitation facilities, and adequate education about menstruation and hygiene is prevalent in many schools across the country.

For example, data from WaterAid reveals that some schools still do not have sanitation facilities and less than five percent of schools provide handwashing facilities with soap. While access to water is quite encouraging at 81 percent, it still means that children from 19 percent of the schools use water from unprotected sources.

For menstrual hygiene advocate Asayire Kapira, the gaps in infrastructure are compounded by deeper systemic failures. Malawi, he argues, lacks the legal and policy frameworks to coordinate menstrual hygiene management at national level.

“As a nation, we do not have clear instruments or strategies guiding menstrual hygiene in schools. Most interventions are led by NGOs, each working in isolation. If we had a national strategy, every school construction project would include girl-friendly facilities from the start,” Kapira says.

“Without such coordination, efforts remain scattered and unsustainable. Policies would help us track progress and hold institutions accountable. We cannot continue relying on goodwill and projects that end when funding runs out,” he adds.

Efforts from development partners

Besides community-led initiatives that are proving instrumental in providing sanitary pads and educating girls, thus creating a conducive environment for adolescent girls, various organizations are also complementing the government in promoting menstrual hygiene management in the country.

One such organization is WaterAid, which has been working across several districts, constructing hygiene facilities and training communities.

“We provide menstrual hygiene structures, that is toilets, bathrooms, changing rooms, and handwashing stations. We also train mother groups to sew reusable pads and teach the girls how to make them,” Maria Soko, Hygiene Behavior Change Specialist at WaterAid says.

The aim, she says, is to address absenteeism caused by fear, shame, and lack of facilities.

“We realized that girls were missing classes because they feared being laughed at by boys or because they had no sanitary materials. So, we made sure schools had extra pads for emergencies. This has helped girls to become more confident and comfortable,” she says.

The success of WaterAid interventions on menstrual hygiene in Kasungu, Mponela, and Lilongwe demonstrate what is possible when schools, communities, and development partners collaborate.

In those schools, apart from the provision of water and sanitation facilities and services, the organization has championed the presence of menstrual hygiene champions, specifically boys who have helped dismantle stigma as menstrual hygiene is not just about pads or toilets, but also changing mindsets.

“We deliberately involved male learners. They have helped girls to feel safe and reduced teasing. It has become a shared responsibility,” Soko explains.

A holistic approach

Globally, the menstrual hygiene approach entails that menstrual hygiene in schools must rest on four interconnected pillars. They are information and education; access to safe, appropriate facilities, availability of affordable menstrual products, and a supportive, stigma-free environment.

In Malawi, each of these pillars remain shaky. Many schools lack private, lockable toilets or safe water for washing. Soap is often unavailable, and sanitary disposal systems are nonexistent. Teachers, especially male teachers, rarely receive training on menstrual health, leaving girls with no adult to confide in when the unexpected happens.

Where community-based initiatives exist, they are fragile, dependent on inconsistent donor funding and volunteer energy. And while reusable pads have proven life-changing, for many, they remain impractical in places without water.

A holistic approach, advocates say, means more than just building structure. It means embedding menstrual hygiene into education policy, school design, and teacher training; ensuring budget lines for sanitary materials, and confronting the social stigma that still silences conversation.

“Menstrual hygiene must be institutionalized, not left to projects or goodwill. It should be part of national education and health strategies, with dedicated funding and accountability mechanisms,” Kapira says.

Towards a national conversation

Every day, as Cecilia packs her schoolbag at the end of the day, before heading home, she pauses at the non-functional small brick structure built just for girls like her, a room that changed her story.

“When I have my period, I come to school. I don’t hide anymore,” she says, her quiet statement carrying the weight of a national truth that no girl should have to choose between her dignity and education.

Malawi’s journey towards menstrual dignity is at a crossroad. Community passion has opened the door, but national policy and investment must walk through it. The lessons from Kawaza Primary are both inspiring and sobering. Progress is possible, but it cannot stand on volunteer energy alone.

The Gender Equality Act of 2013 provides that every person has the right to access education and training including vocational guidance at all levels.

For successful enjoyment of this right, the Act places responsibility on the government to take active measures to ensure that educational institutions provide equal access to girls and boys, including provision of sanitary facilities that take into account the specific needs of the sex of students.

By resolving the menstrual hygiene issue in schools, Malawi can position itself to achieve several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including goals on poverty, quality education, gender equality, sanitation, and even good health and well-being.

Through various interventions, Malawi is making progress. But the struggle continues. Until every school has clean water, private toilets, and the means to manage menstruation with safety and pride, the dream of gender equality in education will remain unfinished.

Until then, thousands of girls across the country will continue to juggle biology and inequality in classrooms that promise education but still deny comfort and dignity.

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