Girls Glory - Improve Menstrual Health in India

Hope you are doing well. Our girls here in India also are doing well and happy and excited. Over the last quarter we were able to impact the lives of 1300 Girls by providing them with new sanitation facility in their schools as well as renovating few toilets, drainage system and water pumps. 

The TCS Marathon

This year again we had a fundraiser for the TCS Marathon, we had 15 volunteers raising funds and 120 volunteers running for the marathon for the cause of Girls Glory. All of us had a good fun running the 6k and the 10K marathon. It indirectly forced all of us to be fit and going as well as build awareness among the Bangloreans about the need for health and sanitation. {Photos attached below} 

Girls Glory Workshops

We were able to finalise on our Girls Glory Puberty, Health and Hygiene education book which is under review currenly. We were basically looking for a positive behavioural change in the children in terms of hygiene and taboos and we are happy we could achieve it among the students. We are gonna persist on our endeavour and build the lives of children with your support.

Building of toilets

Last quarter we built 19 New Toilets and Renovated 5 Toilets for the children. All the children were on vacation last two months and would be happy to see the new toilets when they start Schools this month. We are scaling up the project coming quarter to East Karnataka, West Bengal, Jammu Kashmir and Orissa, 

New Plans 

We are looking to conduct free health camps for girls and teachers for this achedemic year to check on health issues. And we are also thinking of helping the school to do rain water harvesting and use the water from the hand wash facility and the rain water to set up a garden in the Schools. We need more ideas on the same and we need your help to do it better, so please do write back your review to us on the same. We look forward to built toilets in 10 more Schools in the coming quarter.

Success story

Manjula{Photo attached below} is studying at 5 th grade in government school, their family is migrated to Bangalore a decade ago. Father works as mason and mother is daily labour at construction site. She has beenstudying in the same school for the past 3 years, initial days of her schooling the school did not have proper toilet facility as there was lack of water facility in toilet therefore some time children were into practice to go outside for the open defecation. During such situation Manjula went through lot of embarrassment as she knows practicing open defecation will cause infection, fear of insect bite or snake and also disgrace on self. She has learned and aware that open defecation is not good for health and also it will dirty the surroundings of school and living place of others in the society, also she is very much conscious about consequences. She deserves appreciation for not practising open defecation and also practicing the same continuously, thus she is with single mind not practice any more open defecation. Therefore Manjula likes having clean toilets at school for the use of children she says it means a lot to all children.

Thank you for all your support and do write back your reviews to us. Have a blessed months ahead.

Links:

• Website

It's that time of the year when we look back to the last whole year and celebrate the good times as well as work on improving our approaches the coming year. With ‘your’ support we have reached to 2962 Girls and 400 Boys over the last year. We were able to build 51 New Toilets and Renovate 35 Toilets and reach to 28 Government Schools across India. Few more are under construction right now. We were also able to conduct 34 Awareness workshops.

Challenges that we faced!

There were lot of challenges we came across the most glaring one was the crisis of maintenance. In the beginning of the year we were focused on building toilets but later we were awakened to the new issue i.e. of maintenance. So from mid of the year we tried various ways to tackle this issue and finally now be believe we have almost have a fool proof plan. 

Reaching Hand now not only builds toilet but also vouches for the maintenance. One of the biggest breakthroughs came when we started involving the beneficiaries as well as all the stakeholders in maintenance. We conducted awareness programs and made committees to ensure cleanliness. 

Achievements!

• The TCS Marathon fundraiser was a huge success as we were able to share our cause with 1000's of people.
• We were able to create our own and good syllabus for health and hygiene and puberty workshops with the help of volunteers.
• We could strategize maintenance of toilets.
• We could empower the teachers and School Management along with students about the importance of toilets.

In the coming year!

• We will be doing awareness campaigns in the slums in Bangalore along with full-fledged health camps.
• Research on eco-toilets and its sustainability.
• We will be reaching out to 50 more schools across India
• Empower all the Schools about health and hygiene.
• Release the Workshop material officially as tried and tested.
• Work on stronger materials to fit inside the toilets as the children or the community tend to break during the after school hours.

Thanks to you for all the progress we could make. We are also thankful to Global Giving UK for the funds they have donated to Reaching Hand for scaling up our projects. We want to scale up our project to the whole of India. Do give us your feedback and suggestions so that we can improve our project. Do continue supporting us and also visit us if you come down to India.

Thanks a ton again.!!!! Few photos have been attached below portraying the accomplishments. Do look into it.

Links:

• Website