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The Price of Periods — Economics of Empathy in Lagos
“Empathy doesn’t distort the market — it redefines its value.” — Nehal
When I arrived in Lagos for my liaison work with the Rotary Club of Eko Atlantic and other Rotary-affiliated efforts, I thought I was entering a hygiene-awareness session. What I found instead was an economics class—only the currency was dignity, the ledger was missed school days, and the interest rate was silence.
Opening
In partnership with Rotary clubs in Lagos, we launched hygiene awareness sessions under programmes like Project Ominira (which means “Freedom” in Yoruba) aimed at distributing sanitary napkins and hygiene kits to female students (aged approx. 11–17) at schools such as the Girls Junior Academy, Marina, Lagos.
In one initiative by the Rotary Club of Lagos Palmgrove Estate, they found that 20% of girls from under-privileged sections miss school because they lack access to menstrual hygiene supplies.
Before the first kit packet was handed out, the cost of invisibility was already clear:
- In Lagos, a survey of 1,429 women aged 15–49 found that 85% reported using sanitary pads as their main menstrual hygiene material.
But even where materials existed, the implications for schooling were significant. Studies from Nigeria (e.g., Jalingo) highlight that menstrual-associated absenteeism leads to a 20% loss of active school days and a 2.9-5.5% drop in academic performance for girls compared with boys.
- In Lagos’s school context, if 20% of girls are missing school because of hygiene challenges, the ripple effect is profound: reduced learning hours, lower confidence, higher dropout risk.
My classroom of change
I walked into that first session carrying hygiene-kits, but also carrying questions:
“Miss, why do pads cost more than bread?”
“My brother can go to school even when I can’t.”
I drew a simple two-column chart: Cost / Consequence.
On the left: what a pad costs. On the right: what happens when you don’t have one — missed classes, shrinking confidence, a pause in potential.
A girl named Ada raised her hand and quietly said:
“So we pay the price twice — once in money, and again in silence.”
That line became the title of my next session.
Building the infrastructure of dignity
With the Rotary clubs, we didn’t just distribute; we enabled awareness and system-change:
- Monthly distributions of sanitary kits to girls in under-privileged schools. Rotary News+1
- Interactive sessions teaching about menstrual health, breaking stigma, promoting safe disposal, and creating private WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) facilities where possible.
- Data collection: tracking absenteeism, monitoring participation, preparing dashboards to show the living economy of dignity.
From data to empathy
This is where “economics of empathy” becomes real. Because every kit, every session, every girl in class means a unit of value reclaimed. We may never count all the moments that silence breaks, but we can show the difference in attendance, in engagement, in possibility.
In Lagos, the numbers tell a story:
- 85% of women say they can meet their menstrual hygiene needs (Lagos survey) — but that still leaves a significant 15% who are vulnerable.
A 20% absentee rate among girls in challenged sections due to lack of pads (Rotary Palmgrove Estate) — and each missing girl is a future diminished.
The ripple effect—what happens next
When a girl doesn’t miss school, she reads more, learns more, contributes more. That translates to future economic participation, to healthier communities, to shifting norms.
When empathy is embedded in economics, we stop treating menstrual hygiene as charity — we treat it as infrastructure. Because dignity is infrastructure.
My personal takeaway
Walking through corridors of Lagos schools, chalk in one hand, kit in the other, I realized something simple: data is not sterile. On those benches I saw equations alive — pain plus cost equals lost opportunity. I saw empathy as the multiplier.
This is why I call myself a reflective economist. My ledger isn’t just spreadsheets—it’s lives. My dashboard isn’t just charts—it’s children back in class, communities shifting, silence turning to voice.
The reflective economist by Nehal 