Update on the WPTO: Removing Barriers to Girls Education through Menstrual Health and Hygiene Management

Think Malawi are happy to share an update on the progress of our project with our Malawian-based partner, Women Palm Tree Organisation (WPTO).

This project is to provide education and facilities to support Menstrual hygiene within the Katubza Primary School, located within the Dzaleka Refugee Camp in the Dowa District of central Malawi. The WPTO identified that the lack of menstrual health and hygiene management had become a critical barriers to girls' education. They identified that the school environment and lack of menstrual hygiene management services had  caused girls to miss lessons and in a number of cases this led to them dropping out from school altogether.

The project runs from March 2025 to February 2026 but has already started to deliver some significant improvements for the girls of Katubza Primary School.

The project had an initial plan of  providing training to 10 women from the school's Mother Group  on the 5 sewing machines. But once the project started 20 additional women volunteered including mothers from other schools, teen mothers and adolescent girls.

Additionally we brought forward the training from April to March in order to take advantage of the school holidays and because of  the enthusiasm  of the volunteers  who were eager to be trained on the sewing machines. All 30 women are now fully equipped to produce sanitary pads. Already they have produced 1,000 reusable sanitary pads and provided 23 girls with school uniforms. Through this they will be able to start generating income to support their families.

Thanks to all of these reusable sanitary pads there was a 52% increase in attendance by the girls from June to September 2025 during the important exam period.

In addition, the project has reduced cases of girls dropping out at Katubza Primary School with no reports of drop outs or pregnancies between June and September 2025 from 400 girl learners. Previously in this period of school holiday over 10 girls would have disappeared due to child marriage or become pregnant.

Think Malawi will continue updating our readers on our projects throughout this year on this website, however, there are other ways to also stay updated through our social media such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and X or join our monthly newsletter.