Ladies Without Plastic - Green Menstruation. Environmental challenge by Sofonie Dala, Angola. Day 4

 Green Menstruation - Reducing climate change

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, 

Welcome to the 4th day of our environmental challenge : Women Without Plastic - Key to reduce our carbon footprints! 

Period poverty describes the struggle many low-income women and girls face while trying to afford menstrual products. Difficulty affording menstrual products can cause girls to stay home from school and work, with lasting consequences on their educations and economic opportunities.

Helena Julha is our guest for today. She will share with us about her menstrual journey!

Hello... Good evening!

Good evening, thanks.

What is your name?

My name is Helena Julha.

How old are you?

I'm 17 years old.

Which of these 2 pads do you use?

I use this disposable absorbent.

Why?

This disposable pad makes my life a lot easier. After  using it, I dispose of it directly.

But with the cloth one, I cannot do the same, and I must wash and dry.

Isn't it more economical? You won't always need to spend money to buy disposable pads.

No, after wearing this cloth for a while, it starts to itch and this causes urinary tract infection (rash).

But you must change constantly (several times a day) so as not to cause you itch.

Yes but...

But isn't it more economical?

Yes this is more economical.

Have you ever used the cloth one? 

I never used the cloth one. I don't remember ever using the cloth pad.

And how do you know this causes rash (itching)?

I use to hear what older women say, the ones who prefer to wear this. They say what they feel.

What do you think. Why do older women prefer to use the cloth absorbent and not the disposable one?

I do not know. Some women use washable pads even when they are not menstruating.

OK thanks.

How does menstruation affect the environment?

No, menstruation in itself is not bad for the environment. However, products used to manage menstruation can have a negative impact on the environment, depending on the product and the way it is disposed.

Menstrual products such as tampons and pads often contain plastics and chemicals that are bad for the environment. The time it takes for them to degrade in a landfill is centuries longer than the lifespan of a woman.

More environmentally friendly options include reusable menstrual cups as well as reusable and/or biodegradable pads. 

But in many places, alternative methods are not available or culturally acceptable. In all circumstances, the choice of menstrual product must be acceptable to the people using them. For example, some women are not comfortable with insertable products like menstrual cups. In humid environments, reusable menstrual pads may be difficult to thoroughly dry.

Given the potential environmental consequences of disposable menstrual products, it is important to expand the range of methods available to women, allowing them to make informed choices that fit their needs.

This movement helps to end period poverty in Angola by empowering women and girls in making reusable pads. Disposable pads contains plastic, artificial fragrance and chemical gel. When disposed it takes hundreds and thousands of years to break down in the landfills!

African Development Bank’s Coding for Employment Program Digital Ambassadors Initiative

 Application Deadline: December 31st, 2021 

The African Development Bank’s Coding for Employment program will train over 500 digital ambassadors to lead a peer-to-peer training model set to expand digital skills to more African youth, especially in rural communities with limited internet connectivity.

Coding for Employment and its technical partners, Microsoft Philanthropies, will offer the digital ambassadors an intensive three-month program featuring in-demand skills, such as web design and digital marketing, as well as soft skills such as critical thinking, project management, and communication.

Requirements

Applicants, aged between 18 and 35 years, are expected to be proficient in English or French and must be citizens of Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria, or Senegal.
Coding for Employment expects to expand the digital ambassador program to other countries soon after the pilot phase.

Benefits

Digital ambassadors will receive stipends and have access to the digital skills training centers in Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, and Rwanda.
They will also have access to a network of employers, private sector partners and freelancing platforms.

Click here to apply: https://bit.ly/3DBdaLm

Germany moves to boost vaccination rates as pandemic numbers surge

 German state and national leaders agreed on Thursday to a series of steps to encourage vaccination pick-up as the country fights off a record-setting fourth wave of the coronavirus.

Under the plan, leisure, culture, sport facilities and outlets serving food would be only accessible to the fully vaccinated or those who have recovered from a coronavirus infection if case counts remain high.

The rules would kick in – as they have already done in many parts of the country – when the hospitalization rate in the state hits three. In other words: three people hospitalized with a coronavirus-related infection per 100,000 people in the past week.

If the rate stays below three for five days in a row, the restrictions can be eased. Children under 18 years old – the vast majority of whom are not vaccinated – are exempt from the rule.

If the rate rises above six, then even those who are vaccinated or who have recovered from Covid-19 will have to produce a negative coronavirus test to access public facilities.

Should the hospitalization rate breach the level of nine, states are allowed to impose yet tougher restrictions. Two German states, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt, are already in double digits according to data compiled by the infectious diseases agency, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). Bavaria is at 8.65.

“We are in a very serious situation,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel. “It is really absolutely time for action.”

People who work in a variety of fields, including hospitals and care homes, will be expected to get vaccinated. The requirement for vaccination will depend on how much contact a worker has with at-risk individuals, said Hendrik Wuest, the head of the conference of state premiers.

Wuest promised a national push on vaccinations, with a massive increase in vaccination capabilities. The goal is to make sure everyone gets a booster shot starting five months after their initial vaccination.

That will mean mobile vaccination teams working in tandem with vaccination centres, hospitals, private practices and workplace physicians, among others, to get jabs in arms. It’s also expected that, in the coming weeks, vaccinations will be approved for children as young as 5. Right now, the cut-off is 12 and up, except for special circumstances.

Financial aid for German businesses particularly hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic will also be extended through March.

The decisions from the meeting between federal and state leaders still need to be written into law, some at the state level, some at the federal level. The meeting came hours after the country’s parliament passed new, separate legislation laying out what measures are allowed to be used to control the pandemic.

If passed, the new regulations will expand measures for the workplace, public transport and care homes, but rule out closing schools or businesses. They also impose severe penalties on those evading restrictions.

The RKI announced 65,371 new infections on Thursday, surpassing the 60,000-mark for the first time. The seven-day incidence was 336.9 per 100,000 of the population, up from 249.1 a week ago and just 74.4 a month ago.

“We will have an extremely unpleasant Christmas if we do not act to stop this,” RKI president Lothar Wieler said.

Earlier in parliament, members of Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) had criticized the new plans, saying they were insufficient replacement measures for emergency pandemic provisions currently in place. These are set to expire in a week’s time.

But Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats (SPD), who aims to head a new coalition government in partnership with the Greens and the pro-business FDP, defended the measures passed by the Bundestag on Thursday.

During a vigorous debate, Sabine Dittmar, health spokesman for the SPD, which is leading the coalition talks, said the parties were reacting with necessary and legally secure measures.

Speaking for the CDU, Thorsten Frei called instead for the expiring emergency measures to be extended and said the new provisions would remove powers from state-level governments.

The new measures must still go to the upper house, where approval is far from certain.

A survey by German broadcasters RTL and ntv showed that 57 per cent of respondents approve of plans to force people who aren’t vaccinated to stay indoors. About 64 per cent said they approved of vaccination requirements.

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Aid arrives, some migrants head home, but Belarus tensions still high

 The prospects for the crowds of migrants massed at the Belarusian-Polish border grew no clearer on Thursday, with some giving up hope of crossing, yet more showing up, and world leaders still seeking to negotiate an end to the crisis.

Hundreds had retreated from the border after days of hoping to gain access to EU territory, most of them to an emergency centre in the nearby town of Bruzgi.

But hundreds more seemed to be taking their place. And there were seemingly thousands more who have still not give up their spot despite wintry conditions.

“I’m afraid that I’m going to be deported and die in Iraq,” said Hoshmand Abdalla, a Kurdish student staying in the emergency centre along with about 2,000 others.

“We want a better life in the EU, in Germany,” says Faraidun Qadir, a friend of Abdalla’s.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko stands accused of encouraging thousands of people from war-torn countries to come to Belarus with a promise of a life in Europe. The European Union alleges that he sent them towards the bloc’s eastern flank in retaliation for sanctions against his regime.

On Wednesday, the Belarusian leader agreed during a phone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to talk to the EU about the crisis.

While that talk didn’t raise the prospect of Poland opening its border any time soon, it seems to have jump-started the amount of humanitarian aid coming to the border region.

On Thursday, the flurry of diplomatic activity continued in a bid to resolve the stand-off and the resulting humanitarian crisis.

In phone calls with Polish President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, French President Emmanuel Macron called for humanitarian assistance, according to the Elysee Palace.

Macron said he wanted to work towards a humane solution without legitimizing the way in which the people had arrived at the border.

Macron called on the EU to continue working with transit countries and countries of origin, as well as airlines, to stem the flow of migrants and allow people with no claim to asylum to return home.

Nonetheless, the situation at the border remained worrying, especially as the first confirmed case of Covid-19 was reported at the emergency shelter, a place where around 1,000 people have slept on the floor of the shelter in a very confined space during the past two nights.

A vaccination centre is to be opened in the storage facility and China’s Sinopharm vaccine will be administered, Belarusian authorities said.

Due to the threat of rain, the Belarusian authorities also want to prepare more emergency shelters.

Some of the migrants have given up and volunteered to be sent back home. A group of Iraqis arrived back in their country on Thursday, on board a plane sent by the Iraqi government. They had been stranded for weeks at the border.

The Iraqi Ministry of Transport published photos on its Facebook page showing people leaving the plane, saying it landed in the northern Kurdish city of Erbil. Earlier, authorities said around 430 were expected to be on the flight. In total, some 460 people have registered to return to Iraq.

Clashes between Polish security forces and migrants desperate to cross have led to fears of a potential military escalation. The Polish government has claimed that the Belarusian authorities have been encouraging crowds to storm the border and equiping them with things like tear gas.

“Belarusian forces are provoking more and more directly. I hope they don’t take that one step too far in the process,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said. “Because we Poles are determined to protect our border by all means. The eastern border of Europe and also of NATO.”

He has warned that Europe will receive an influx of “millions” of migrants if border policies remain lax.

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Mayor of South Sudan’s capital sacked

 Some residents of South Sudan’s capital, Juba, have taken to social media to express their anger at the dismissal of the city’s mayor, Kalisto Lado Faustino.

Others are however celebrating the sacking saying the demolition of illegal structures during a recent restructuring project led by the mayor was unfair.

Mr Lado was sacked by Central Equatoria state Governor Emmanuel Adil Anthony on Thursday evening.

He had been the mayor since March and no reason was given for his dismissal.

Those who are opposed to the dismissal say he was hardworking and changed the face of Juba city.

During his tenure, feeder roads into the capital were expanded easing traffic and improving overall security.

His restructuring project however led to clashes with some senior government officials.

Some traders were also angry with Mr Lado saying they had ot pay higher taxes when he was in charge.

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Belarus’s Lukashenko tells BBC: We may have helped migrants into EU

 Belarus’s authoritarian leader has told the BBC it is “absolutely possible” his forces helped migrants cross into Poland but denies they were invited.

In an exclusive interview in the Minsk presidential palace, he told me: “I think that’s absolutely possible. We’re Slavs. We have hearts. Our troops know the migrants are going to Germany.”

“Maybe someone helped them. I won’t even look into this.”

However, he denied inviting thousands in to provoke a border crisis.

“I told them I’m not going to detain migrants on the border, hold them at the border, and if they keep coming from now on I still won’t stop them, because they’re not coming to my country, they’re going to yours.

“That’s what I meant. But I didn’t invite them here. And to be honest, I don’t want them to go through Belarus.”

Alexander Lukashenko has been in power in Belarus since 1994 but his re-election as president was widely discredited by the West and not recognised by the EU.

He has been accused by the EU of orchestrating the border crisis with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia in recent months in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Belarus for its brutal crackdown on opponents who took part in mass protests after the August 2020 election.

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES

Image caption,

Mass protests over the discredited election led to a government crackdown, with people sent to prison or exiled

Thousands of protesters and opposition activists were detained and opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya was forced out of Belarus after claiming victory. Her team have criticised the BBC for conducting Friday’s interview, which they described as “giving the floor to a dictator”.

I asked the Belarus leader about peaceful protesters being beaten and then tried to hand him a video showing people emerging from a notorious detention centre in Minsk with injuries they had sustained through torture.

“OK, OK, I admit it, I admit it. People were beaten in the Okrestina detention centre. But there were police beaten up too and you didn’t show this.”

IMAGE SOURCE,EPA

Image caption,

Released detainees showed their bruising outside the Minsk detention centre in August 2020

I then asked him about how he had gone about destroying civil society, including the closure of 270 non-government organisations since July.

“We’ll massacre all the scum that you [the West] have been financing. Oh, you’re upset we’ve destroyed all your structures! Your NGOs, whatever they are, that you’ve been paying for.”

EU officials have accused the Belarus leader of an “inhuman, gangster-style approach” to events on the border, with the false promise of easy entry to Poland and the ultimate aim of destabilising the EU.

At least 2,000 migrants, mainly from the Middle East, were stranded in camps next to Belarus’s border with Poland until they were eventually moved this week to a logistics warehouse nearby. An estimated 5,000 migrants remain in Belarus, although hundreds flew back to Kurdish northern Iraq on a repatriation flight on Thursday.

• Fear and violence in the jails of Belarus
• Belarus dissidents who disappeared and died
• Europe’s longest-serving ruler under fire

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