There is a barrier to girls’ education that doesn’t make headlines as often as it should. Every month, across countries like Liberia, thousands of girls miss school simply because they don’t have access to sanitary products. Days lost add up to weeks, weeks to months, and for too many girls, those absences become the beginning of the end of their education. Your support of the Girls’ Accelerated Learning Initiative (GALI) is changing that, in the most practical, empowering, and joyful way imaginable.
Earlier this year, GALI conducted reusable pad training across all 40 schools in the program, reaching 840 girls of all ages. The training equipped girls with the skills to make, use, and care for their own reusable pads, giving them dignity, self-reliance, and the confidence that comes from making something with your own hands. For many of these girls, it was the very first time they had ever picked up a needle and thread, and the pride in their faces said everything.
The training was thoughtfully designed to meet each girl exactly where she is. Girls aged 13 and above who were already menstruating received materials to make five pads, ensuring a reliable and consistent supply. Girls aged 11 and 12 received materials based on their individual needs, whether they had already begun their cycle or were being prepared for when it starts. Even the youngest participants, aged 10 and below, took part in the pad making process to learn the skill, with materials distributed to the 76 among them who were already menstruating. Every participant also received soap, reinforcing healthy hygiene habits alongside their new practical skills.
In some schools, between 95 and 99 percent of girls successfully made their own pads. Many used leftover materials to make extra pads and helped their peers along the way, turning the training into a beautiful moment of peer learning and solidarity. Teachers and principals described the initiative as timely and deeply impactful. The girls themselves shared how relieved they were to know that their monthly cycle would no longer mean missing class.
This life-skills training sits within the broader GALI program, which provides targeted after-school support for over-age girls in Grades 1 to 6 across Liberia, run by CODE and the WE-CARE Foundation. Focused on accelerated literacy and numeracy, life skills, and mentorship, GALI is successfully advancing between 75 and 84 percent of participants by two full grade levels every year. These are girls who had fallen behind, being given every reason and every tool to catch up and keep going.
Because of you, menstruation is no longer a reason to miss school. Because of you, 840 girls have a new skill, a supply of pads, and one less barrier standing between them and their education. That is an incredible thing, and it would not be possible without you.