Courageous Daughters: Menstruation as a Gateway to Social-Emotional Learning in the Binti Shupavu Life Skills Program in Tanzania

• In Event: Girlhoods

Proposal

Menstrual health and hygiene (MHH) has been identified as an international development priority that is vital to girls’ education and gender equality. Despite increasing attention and menstruation-related programming, girls continue to face debilitating menstruation-related challenges globally (Coast et al., 2019). To fill this crucial gap, many life skills programs that build social-emotional learning (SEL) competencies include adolescent sexual reproductive health (ASRH) and menstruation content that equips girls with the knowledge and resources to better understand and navigate menstruation. Scholars and practitioners alike have identified both SEL and menstruation education/pad provision as vital to girls' empowerment and education, particularly in low-resource settings. However, the connection between menstruation programming and SEL competencies is yet to be established.
This paper details the ways in which MHH content in the Binti Shupavu life skills program delivered to girl students in Tanzania not only alleviates challenges surrounding menstruation but serves as a gateway to developing a myriad of SEL competencies that are vital to girls' agency and healthy development. This paper outlines the importance of MHH to gender justice and inclusive education. Our research is a call to ensure that a natural function of the female body does not inhibit girls from reaching their full potential.
Based on an empirical evaluation of the Binti Shupavu life skills program conducted by a collaborative South-North partnership between the Girls Livelihood and Mentorship Initiative (GLAMI), the University of Dar es Salaam, the AMPLIFY Girls Network in East Africa, and Cornell University, this paper explores the specific causal path in which menstruation program components build agency in girls and increase the supportive capacity within their communities to ease the burdens of menstruation and support girls' education. The findings in this paper are situated within a broader cluster (school-level) randomized control trial that utilizes longitudinal mixed methods, including qualitative process tracing to explore 1) the relationship between agency and education outcomes and 2) establish a causal path for how life skills programs impact agency and support girls’ education. Within this research, MHH emerged as a vital aspect of building agentive capacity in Binti Shupavu scholars.
Based on interviews with Binti Shipavu scholars as well as parents, program, and community stakeholders this study elevates the voices and experiences of girls and their communities to center their lived experiences in discussion and understanding of menstruation. We found that menstruation serves as the entry point to engage a comprehensive set of changes and challenges girls experience during adolescence. Binti Shupavu’s health and wellness units include topics and competencies with which girls can tangibly engage and apply in their lives. Curriculum related to puberty and menstruation equips girls with both the skills to navigate menstruation (which, in the Tanzanian context is understood as self-awareness) and the ability to organize such skills to take on tasks and challenges (self-governance). Having the skills, and the ability to apply such skills results in improved hygiene practices. We found that building self-governance in the context of understanding, relating to, and caring for one’s body improves mental health, self-efficacy, and self-esteem. These vital SEL competencies are building blocks for girls' agency and support improved education outcomes.
In addition to focusing on SEL that takes place within girls, our research focuses on the broader environment in which girls menstruate. We employ a whole-community approach to menstruation and give particular attention to the role of parent engagement. Parent participation in Binti Shupavu sessions generates greater comfortability discussing menstruation and ASHR, topics that are customarily discouraged by social norms and a “culture of silence” (FAWE). This is particularly vital given the disruption to customary knowledge systems in which grandparents or elder women family members were formerly responsible for educating and supporting girls through pubertal changes such as menstruation. Binti Shupavu sensitizes parents to the changes girls experience during puberty, provides them with accurate SRH information, and encourages them to be sources of support for their children. Participants and parents alike report that parent engagement, coupled with the SEL competencies girls develop in girls’ clubs results in an “opening up” of communication with parents. Drawing on Positive Youth Development (PYD), these newly open pathways for communication provide an opportunity for Binti Shupavu scholars to apply SEL competencies in their lives and relationships.
In addition to increased parental support, participants identify the relationship with Binti Shupavu mentors as a key benefit of the program. Participants describe building trusting relationships with their mentors, which can be particularly impactful for girls that don’t receive support at home. Binti Shupavu scholars also establish peer support networks throughout the course of the program which participants report alleviates some of the isolation of menstruation.
This research details the potential of menstruation to serve as a bridge to equip girls with the confidence and skills to navigate numerous challenges that fundamentally impact healthy development and education. Given that inclusion, equity, and access are the foundation of progressive social movements, geographically and culturally situated programs that build girls’ capacity to participate in civil society are vital to social justice and protest. This study is an example of African-led development and research. The collaborating organizations: GLAMI and AMPLIFY Girls, represent a wide network of community-driven organizations based in the Global South that are working to counter the narratives of traditional top-down, one-sized-fits-all development practice. Through this work, we seek to elevate girls’ voices and experiences towards action to support them in developing into healthy, empowered agents of social change.

Authors

• Aubryn Allyn Sidle, Cornell University, Global Development

• Hannah Schwarz

• Asimwe Suedi, AMPLIFY Girls

• Eugenia Joseph Kafanabo, UNIVERSITY OF DAR ES SALAAM

• Brenda Oulo, AMPLIFY GIRLS

• Monica Andrew Swai, Girls Livelihood and Mentorship Initiative (GLAMI)