AS part of efforts to empower women and girls, the Legal Services Facility (LSF) has partnered with Smile for Community (S4C) in co-organizing a special marathon to be held this year in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar.
Christened ‘Run for Binti Marathon’, the event will take place in Dar es Salaam on July 2nd and later on in Zanzibar with more than 1500 runners expected to participate in the charity event aimed to raise funds for sanitary towers.
The marathon will also advocate for a safer and friendly environment in the education sector by enabling girls to continue attending classes during their menstruation period.
Speaking on Wednesday during the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the partnership S4C Flora Njelekela commended LSF for being an active supporter in advocating for justice and rights, girls and women in particular.
“We have put together our collective efforts into solving girls’ challenges in school and ensuring that their rights to education and good reproductive health remain unhindered. This is a long-term agreement that will ensure this event is sustainable and its goals are fully achieved,” she said.
Njelekela went on to mention key goals of the 2023 marathon as supporting access to safe menstrual services for female students in school by providing them with quality menstrual pads as well as improve the school infrastructure by repairing and construct of changing rooms that girls can use during menstruation.
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“We are also determined to raise awareness among young girls about the right to have safe menstruation; and finally to provide tailoring training and equipment to women’s economic groups so that they can produce more easily-available sanitary towels in the country”, she elaborated.
For her part, the LSF Executive Director Lulu Ng’wanakilala said the partnership will enable the two organizations to work together on issues aiming at addressing challenges on access to reproductive health rights among girls in the schools.
“We are coordinating this marathon for the sake to tackle the challenges that girls encounter at school from lack of privacy, access to information and awareness on reproductive health,” she said a
Adding; “Statistics show that female students miss classes for 3 to 4 days a month while in their period, causing them to not perform well in exams or even leave school permanently”.
The LSF boss also called on other stakeholders to support the marathon given the crucial role it is going to serve in the education sector.
