This year’s Menstrual Hygiene Day celebration is all about women’s empowerment. In many countries, women and girls’ participation in education and public life is severely curtailed when they have their periods.
For Tanzanian women, water has the tremendous potential to transform lives. Women in Tanzania have a keen interest in water’s thoughtful management for their homes and farms, and they bear the burden of water retrieval.
“I stumbled across one of my village women—pregnant, with loads of wood on her head, coming from the farm, some livestock—and I stopped to chat with her.
I hurried into the meeting room, reassuring myself that most participants also had not made the 7 a.m. start time for the session. I was wrong. The room was almost full, and I had a challenging time even finding a seat.