{"id":3410,"date":"2026-07-31T07:32:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T05:32:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/waterconsortium.ch\/?p=3410"},"modified":"2026-08-05T07:25:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T05:25:15","slug":"when-school-learning-transforms-the-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/waterconsortium.ch\/fr\/when-school-learning-transforms-the-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Quand l'apprentissage scolaire transforme la vie de famille"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Author and picture credits: Alice Chabi Guiya<\/em>, Abdias Bio Sika<\/em>, Helvetas Benin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the “Blue School<\/a>” concept, one of the signature approaches of the Swiss Water and Sanitation Consortium, was presented to education stakeholders in the Alibori Department of Benin, an alignment exercise was undertaken. Teachers and supervisory staff came together in a workshop to identify which subject areas in the Beninese curriculum could accommodate Blue School themes (drinking water, sanitation, hygiene, gardening, reforestation, etc.). They successfully identified three main subject areas: French, Science and Technology Education, and Social Education. However, the theme of “growth and change” \u2014 which includes menstrual health and hygiene management (MHH) \u2014 is not aligned with the primary school curriculum. Given the importance of the topic as highlighted by school stakeholders, the supervisory team decided that menstrual hygiene would be addressed through community women. This marked the beginning of the project’s facilitation of educational discussion sessions on MHH.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Community Liaison Women (FRC from Femmes relais communautaires)[1]<\/a> work on an almost voluntary basis to facilitate these sessions, supported by teachers and school principals who mobilise children on non-school days (Wednesdays and Saturdays). Having become role models for girls, the FRCs were trained to make reusable sanitary pads \u2014 a skill they subsequently passed on to the boys and girls participating in the educational sessions. Today, teachers and parents are pleased to see their children breaking taboos around menstruation; and it is with pride that girls own their menstrual cycles and are ready to share their knowledge with members of their community. One such girl is Oub\u00e9da, a pupil at the Ouagou public primary school in the commune of Banikoara.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Oub\u00e9da attending educational talks on menstrual hygiene with her classmates at school<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

SABI GBESSA Oub\u00e9da participates in the discussion sessions and training facilitated by her village’s FRC on the proper management of menstrual hygiene in school settings. Curious, motivated and attentive, she quickly grasps the significance of what she is learning \u2014 not only for herself, but for all those around her. In Year 5 of primary school, Oub\u00e9da did far more than learn to make reusable sanitary pads; she became the first link in a chain of knowledge transmission at the heart of her own family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From knowledge to action<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back home, Oub\u00e9da becomes aware of a silent reality: her older sister, a trainee seamstress, faces real difficulties every month managing her periods, due to a lack of adequate information and accessible means. She decides to act. On her own initiative, she organises a full repeat performance of the training for her older sister, explaining step by step the principles of menstrual hygiene, the advantages of reusable protection, and the manufacturing techniques learned at school. Together, they make six sanitary pads from locally available materials (pieces of fabric, towels, thread and needles). Oub\u00e9da returns to school with one of the pads made with her sister and proudly holds it up to the FRC and the other schoolgirls. The FRC is equally proud to learn that her work has made a difference: “I was happy when she came back to show the pad; I understood that the training I gave had been mastered, because I was not at their home with Oub\u00e9da when she replicated the pad-making with her sister.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Oub\u00e9da’s sister with one of the self-made reusable pads<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

An immediate and lasting impact<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to this sisterly support, Oub\u00e9da’s older sister is now able to manage her periods with dignity and confidence, while reducing the costs associated with purchasing disposable protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Thanks to this training, I will now be able to manage my periods safely without anyone knowing. Not only will the costs of buying disposable pads be reduced, but that money will serve me for other useful purposes”,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

shares Oub\u00e9da’s older sister, an indirect beneficiary of the training.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This experience is one of many in which pupils have replicated within their families what they have learned, creating a ripple effect in their communities. Similar replication has been observed for school gardens, handwashing stations (tippy-taps) and latrines \u2014 all of which have been built by households under the leadership of schoolchildren. This demonstrates that the Blue School approach is a channel through which children can truly become agents of behaviour change. Through Oub\u00e9da’s initiative, we see the full expression of systems strengthening \u2014 with the entire chain of actors functioning together and contributing durably to the health, dignity and empowerment of girls and women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> Community Liaison Women (FRC) are an official mechanism of Benin\u2019s Ministry of Health; they are formally identified and deployed in villages to carry out the Ministry\u2019s routine activities (vaccination, malaria, polio, etc.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Un t\u00e9moignage du B\u00e9nin sur la sant\u00e9 et l'hygi\u00e8ne menstruelle<\/p>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3411,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"french_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,36,71,72,31],"class_list":["post-3410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-benin","category-gender","category-phase-4","category-success","category-wash-in-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/waterconsortium.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/waterconsortium.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/waterconsortium.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waterconsortium.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waterconsortium.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3410"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/waterconsortium.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3429,"href":"https:\/\/waterconsortium.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410\/revisions\/3429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waterconsortium.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/waterconsortium.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waterconsortium.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}