Bolgatanga, Sept.10 GNA - The Integrated Social Development Centre, a non-governmental organisation, in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service (GES)have organised a Sexual Reproductive Health Programme for female pupils in basic schools in the Upper East Region.

The programme is aimed at educating adolescent girls on how to manage their reproductive health especially during their menstrual periods.

The 35 girls drawn from Bongo, Garu-Tempane and Bolgatanga Districts, who attended the two- day programme, were taken through topics such as; Women’s life and leadership skills and Vision.

Mrs Rose Avonsige, Girl- Child Officer of Bolgatanga Municipality who briefed the Ghana News Agency about the programme, said some girls abstain from school when they are in their menstrual periods because of their inability to manage the process.

This she noted affects their academic performance hence the decision to organise the programme.

She entreated the girls to see menstruation as a normal process of life and to report to their female teachers and mothers during their first experience for advice and also stay away from premarital sex to avoid teenage pregnancy.

Mrs Francisca Atare, Municipal Director of the GES, who took the participants on “Differentiating the Concept and Reality of Leadership and Vision”, encouraged the participants to be assertive and bold in their every day endeavour especially in their classrooms.

This, she said, was the only they could be empowered to take leadership roles like their male counterparts.

Mrs Atare called on the pupils to take leadership roles in their communities to empower them to spear head community development