Ms Judith Amoseh Charles is passionate on the advocacy for Girls’ Menstrual Hygiene, and the Founder of Clems Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to empowering young girls and promoting their well-being. Her humanitarian service began with her initiative of ‘Beautiful Daughters of Abba’. With the launch of Clems Foundation, Judith aims to further amplify her voice and intensify the drive for meaningful change in her community.
The Voice Today’s Woman spoke with her in an exclusive interview.
Excerpts.
What is your inspiration about menstrual hygiene?
I started off with something small. I started reaching out to young girls in churches while I was on campus at Kaduna State University. I was basically talking to them about life- their health, and why they should remain in school. Subsequently, it evolved to reaching out to teenage girls in schools. I picked interest in menstrual hygiene because of how society is changing and how young girls are battling with it. There is a link between teenage pregnancy and menstrual hygiene.
So is the Clems Foundation empowering young girls?
Our goal is to reach out to as many young girls as possible, to let them know that they matter and to give them a listening ear to know that someone cares. It is also to make sure that their dreams of becoming whomever they want to be comes through. Judging from how I started, the success has been massive, it has been growing. We started small, just with a small group of girls, with time, we found out that it was increasing, beyond how we were seeing it. We are now able to go out of the church setting to reach out to the girls all over, everywhere we can find them. It has been impactful because I have met a lot of girls who, after every meeting, reach out and say how impactful it has improved their lives and the way they see things, and it has also improved their living standards, health, and menstrual hygiene.
Can you estimate the number of young girls you have reached out to in Nasarawa State?
In Nasarawa State, we have been able to successfully reach out to 500 girls. We visited three different schools: Model Government Girls Schools at Kwandere, Government Science School Lafia, and the Junior Secondary School, Ombi 1. We successfully distributed 500 sanitary pads to the girls.
What are you challenged doing this?
I won’t deny the fact that I face a lot of challenges, starting from funding to planning, organising, and trying to put things in order. It is pretty difficult, especially the funding aspect, because I have to source funds by myself. This money I don’t have, so I have to reach out to organisations and even to individuals to be able to get funds, and sometimes you reach out to people, and you don’t hear anything. Also, organising people to help you work is difficult as well. Basically, I would say funding and organisation have been my greatest challenges.
Who are some of your key partners?
We have worked with a company called Data Drive. They deal with business consultants, and their major impact was that they supported us by funding the project. We are already working on more partnerships with big organisations. I have reached out to the World Health Organisation, United Nations, and other companies and even prominent individuals that would partner with us. So far, a few people are showing interest.
Is there any new initiative or program that you are planning to launch in the near future?
We are looking at getting massive sponsorship to, not just educate these girls but also to put those who are not in school back to school. We want to put them back in school and also improve the standard of living of the less privileged. It is something we want to add up to the foundation.
What else would you want to tell the public?
Firstly, I really want the government to look into putting young girls back to school. There are a lot of them out there hawking, and from that hawking, a lot of things happen to them. Some of these girls who hawk are mostly sexually assaulted by men who want to buy from them. The government should prioritise the education of a girl child and provide access to sanitary pads monthly.
I want organisations working to improve the well-being of girls to continue with what they are doing and to put in more work because there is a lot of work to be done. To all the parents, I wish to urge them to create more time for their children and educate them concerning their hygiene.
Finally, I will advise the girls to stay focused and be contented with what they have. Lack of contentment has pushed a lot of girls to do things they are not proud of. My call to the girls is to stay focused, have a goal, make it realistic, and believe that they can achieve whatever they want to achieve, and to stay away from distractions.
