Men for Periods; assessing the effectiveness of using male champions in enhancing better menstrual hygiene management among adolescent girls and young women in Mombasa County.

In Kenya, inequitable gender dynamics become pronounced during puberty and leave girls and young women unable to negotiate access to vital health care services and products. This in greater length limits full potential to achieve the ambitious universal health coverage (UHC) goals in our country. Menstruation is considered unclean or dirty in many societies. Taboos, myths, and restrictions associated with menstruation leave a negative impact on adolescent girls. Formative research shows that girls face monthly challenges, with 65% of women and girls unable to afford sanitary pads, only 50% of girls discuss menstruation at home and just 12% are comfortable receiving information from their mother, hence pushing 2 out of 3 of pad users in rural Kenya to transactional sex, receiving them from sexual partners. This leads to new HIV infections among adolescent girl and young women, hence the need to have Men for periods project to bridge the gap.General objective:The main objective is to evaluate the effectiveness of using male champions in enhancing better Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) among adolescent girls and young women to reduce incidence of sex for pads thereby reducing acquisition and transmission rates of HIV and other STIs.Specific objectives:1. To determine the proportion of adolescent girls and young women engaged in transactional sex to acquire money for sanitary pads.2. To evaluate the effectiveness of male champions in reducing the incidence of sex for pads and stigma around Menstrual Hygiene among adolescent girls And young women3. To determine the acceptability and feasibility of male champions in enhancing MHM, to inform future scale-up.”