Our primary authorizer for this intervention was our team, comprising of all the partners from Women Environmental Programme, Medical Professionals, volunteers etc. These perceptions are confirmed as a result of social norms and behaviors around period management. The comprehensive hygiene education had girls and boys in participation where we aimed at dealing with the perception by most people in Nigeria, that menstruation was unclean, dirty, shameful and based on this menstrual hygiene management be treated with secrecy and as an embarrassment. With the help of the Ishikawa diagram, we were able to construct the problem and aim our interventions at making impact and producing solutions and not a case of Isomorphic Mimicry – where it looks good but will not be the solution. First we launched a hygiene promotion program amongst the school girls in a bid to be inclusive and produce sustainable results: this we did in partnership with medical personnel who were on ground to educate the girls on the medical implications of poor hygiene behavior during menstruation. Our major aim was to get “unstuck” from the root, the lack of basic sanitation facilities and hygiene behavior for menstruating females in marginalized areas. The first thing we did was to adopt a strategy that constructs and deconstructs the problem using the Ishikawa diagram also known as the Fish bone diagram: in this we noted the cause and effect of this situation by defining the problem statement and then considering the health and environmental implication of this, and bearing in mind the social norms, processes and policies that exist or have been implemented (if any) this also includes laws and solutions that have been adopted again and again, hoping for a different outcome but never producing one. This explains how low capability exists around this subject on menstrual hygiene management. Even when everyone can agree in broad terms that Menstrual hygiene management amongst adolescent girls and women in marginalized areas is very poor as a result of lack of modern facilities, an inability to actually implement a strategy that addresses this means there is little or nothing to show for this realization despite the time, money and efforts (if any). In tackling this issue, PHAAE adopted the Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation ( PDIA) in order not to be mired by the “big stuck” or “capability trap” where developing countries and organizations thereof are stuck doing the same thing year after year that doesn’t improve or help the situation or produce results. In sharp contrast to the 1960s, where only 1% of girls would enter puberty before their 9 th birthday. This era as described by the PHAAE Organization as an “era of new puberty” by a recent study where increasing number of girls starts to develop their sexuality at an early age of 7 or 8.

Menstrual Hygiene management amongst women and adolescent girls has become a matter of concern in recent age especially in rural areas where accesses to modern facilities are hindered by a number of factors and myths surrounding this subject. There have been a lot problems and misconceptions surrounding Menstruation in developing countries particularly in Nigeria.

Ishikawa diagram water and sanitation