In May 2025, in the course of her role as Tearfund’s Global WASH* Specialist, Rachel Stevens spent some time travelling in Malawi to visit projects and programmes that we have supported and implemented over the past few years.
One of the places she visited was a school called Khankombe, in Salima District, where, in 2021, Tearfund had supported our local partner, AG Care, to build two latrine blocks in the school, one for the boys, and one for the girls.
Clean toilets support full classrooms
It will come as no surprise to any of us that having access to a safe, hygienic toilet is crucial to keeping young people in lessons. After all, how can anyone possibly be expected to concentrate, or even fully participate, if they’re distracted by worrying about where and when they might next be able to use a loo? Without clean waste management systems, opportunities for disease and illness to spread are so much greater than when there is an appropriate option for ablutions.
But, for girls who are becoming young women, there is an even greater need for somewhere private to use.
The monthly menstruation taboo
In Malawi, as in many other places around the world, issues like not having safe, clean toilets, along with unhelpful cultural stigma around menstruation, keeps girls out of the classroom during their period. In fact, UNESCO reports that in Sub-Saharan Africa, the proportion of girls this affects is as much as one in every ten. For some, shame, discomfort and the lack of necessary resources can make this absence permanent.
Taboos around periods mean that girls and women who are having their period are seen as unclean. This very normal part of life is treated as embarrassing, dirty, inhibiting and something not to be discussed. And so, women and girls are excluded from all kinds of activities.
