On Nigeria’s dusty football pitches, where young girls chase dreams of becoming the country’s next Super Falcons stars, talent is rarely in short supply.
What is often missing is something much more basic. A bar of soap. A sanitary pad. Toothpaste. Reliable information about menstrual health. Or simply the confidence that comes from knowing you can train, compete and take care of yourself with dignity.
For many young female footballers playing at grassroots level, these everyday essentials remain out of reach.
It is a gap the Rash Hygiene Hub, an initiative of the Rasheedat Ajibade Foundation, is seeking to address. Founded by Super Falcons forward Rasheedat Ajibade, the initiative is built around a straightforward idea: girls should not have to choose between pursuing their football ambitions and taking care of their basic health and hygiene.
The Hub provides hygiene products alongside education on personal care, menstrual health, nutrition and mental wellbeing, with the broader aim of improving the confidence, health and performance of young female footballers.
The Foundation puts it simply: a girl who feels clean, healthy and cared for is better positioned not only to perform on the pitch but also to thrive beyond it.
Hygiene poverty is not always visible. A young footballer may have the talent, discipline and determination to attend training but still struggle to afford the sanitary products she needs during menstruation or basic toiletries required for everyday personal care.
At grassroots level, where clubs and academies often operate with limited resources, such needs can easily take a back seat to transport, feeding, equipment and other immediate expenses.
The consequences go beyond physical hygiene. Lack of access to menstrual products and health information can affect a girl’s confidence, participation and willingness to remain involved in sport.
Figures cited by the Foundation paint a troubling picture. UNFPA data cited by the initiative indicate that 57 per cent of girls in Lagos lack accurate knowledge of menstrual hygiene management, while 77 per cent reported reusing materials such as rags, old clothes and tissue during menstruation.
A 2025 study covering six Nigerian states also found that 58 per cent of girls experienced their first menstruation without prior education about the subject.
For the Rash Hygiene Hub, those figures point to a need for interventions in places where girls already spend their time and where trusted adults, including coaches, are present.
The initiative’s approach is designed to go beyond simply distributing products.
Its outreach follows a seven-step process intended to ensure that the intervention reaches identifiable beneficiaries and that each stage can be accounted for.
The process begins with verification. The team visits a football club or academy, confirms its existence, meets its coach and establishes the number of players involved.
Players are then registered individually and entered into a database. The third stage is education. A qualified health practitioner leads sessions covering personal hygiene, menstrual health, nutrition and mental wellbeing.
Only after the education session are the hygiene packs distributed. Each registered beneficiary receives a Self-Care Pack, with the handover verified against her name. Feedback is subsequently collected through questionnaires, while photographs, videos and written reports document the outreach.
The final stage is reconciliation and reporting, ensuring that the number of packs distributed corresponds with the number of beneficiaries recorded.
The structure is intended to make the intervention measurable rather than treating it as a one-off charitable donation.
Each pack contains eight basic personal-care items designed around the everyday needs of a young female footballer. They include antiseptic soap and bar soap for washing after training, sanitary pads for menstrual care, toothpaste and a toothbrush for oral hygiene, body oil, roll-on deodorant and body mist.
The programme has already begun testing its model in Lagos has plans to expand to other states.
During its first phase, the Hub conducted three consecutive days of outreach involving nine grassroots female football academies. Two hundred girls were registered, while 171 received hygiene packs and participated in education sessions.
The second phase moved to Ikorodu and surrounding communities, where the team visited 10 grassroots female football clubs in a single day.
The programme expanded beyond hygiene education to include nutrition, mental health, first aid and CPR. Participants also took part in a practical CPR demonstration, team quizzes and hygiene-related games.
A total of 202 girls registered during the Ikorodu outreach, with 140 receiving hygiene packs.
The Foundation sees these early interventions as the beginning rather than the destination. The rollout plan kicked off with the Lagos launch, which involved an initial target of 53 clubs in 2026.
The next stage focuses on expanding to more grassroots clubs across the South-West by the fourth quarter of 2026.
The North-Central phase is scheduled for the first quarter of 2027, with the broader objective of extending the programme to all 36 states by the end of the year.
The Foundation says expansion will follow the same model used in Lagos: verify, register, map the clubs according to travel corridors, deliver the intervention, reconcile the numbers, document the work and review the outcome.
The emphasis on documentation is deliberate. The Foundation wants each stage completed and properly accounted for before moving to the next.
