Gender Equality India Project #16688

Girls Glory - Improve Menstrual Health in India

by Reaching Hand

Girls Glory - Improve Menstrual Health in India

Project Report | Dec 9, 2015
I stay in separate room during my period!- Student

By Feba Nisha | Associate Project Manager and Legal Advisor

Seasonal greetings to you from Reaching Hand. It’s our pleasure again to update you about the happenings at this part of the world. It wasn't a great three months though, as we are in the process of assessing the menstrual taboos and current knowledge about menstruation in our schools. We are saddened to hear the responses of girls with regards to the seclusion they go through at their home, school, temples and communities during their menstrual time. "I stay in separate room during my period!" was one of the responses.

Progress report during the previous quarter

Over the last three months we conducted about 13 Assessments in Schools, 2 Puberty Education and 8 Health and Hygiene Education. We also inaugurated 3 renovated toilet blocks and are in the process of building totally 14 new toilet blocks in the coming quarter. The construction was little slow previous quarter due to rains and flood in our neighboring state Chennai.

Information on our Girls Glory Education

Along with the help of amazing volunteers Saldon from Jammu and Kashmir, Rashmi from Florida, Audrey and Danny Forest from Montreal we have put together two manuals one on Puberty Education and other on General Health and Hygiene for the age group of 7-14 years. We are focusing on removing the menstrual taboos and also most importantly explaining the process of puberty and reason behind blood flow, so that girls are aware that menstruation and onset of puberty is just a normal function of the body just like other functions. Through Health and Hygiene Education, we are focusing on educating children on how to keep themselves away from germs to avoid epidemics and viral fevers of various kinds which is rampant here at Bangalore.

Issues and concerns

Maintenance of toilets that are being constructed is one of the main issues we are facing currently. Many of the schools we are providing additional support by engaging third party agencies for cleaning and also fixing tanks to store water around the toilets to ensure continuous water flow even at times when there are long power cuts. We have also planned to make a WASH Committee in each of these schools including the School Authorities, Local Leaders and Students to ensure on maintenance and daily checks on the cleanliness of the Sanitation Facilities.

Celebration

November 19th being the World Toilet Day, we celebrated the same in our Nagenahalli School with inauguration of renovated toilet and Health and Hygiene Awareness Program.

We at Reaching Hand have made it our motto to remove all menstrual taboos among the children and their communities at Bangalore. Thanks to your support that we can continue our work relentlessly. Do continue supporting us, and join hands with us in making Bangalore menstrual taboo free.

Health and Hygiene Program

World Toilet Day Celebration

Toilet blocks under construction

Links:

Website

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Sep 10, 2015
Success is not final,it is the courage to continue

By Feba Nisha | Communication Officer cum Legal Advisor

Girls at the Government School

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

- Winston S. Churchill

June-September was a very eventful month for Reaching Hand in terms of all the activities that’s happened under the Girls Glory Project and the progress we have made in reaching out to 2500 Girl Students from 10 Schools. Thanks to you for your constant support and wishes.

Healthy Sanitation Project

We are glad to inform you that we have successfully built 9 toilets for School Girls and renovated 5 existing toilets for boys in 10 Schools in various parts of Bangalore. As Winston S. Churchill said we are pressing on courageously believing on the backing support from you and all our sponsors and have again started constructing another 5 Toilet buildings in 5 more schools. We are hopeful that we’ll be able to reach out to at least 30 Schools by the end of this year.

Health and hygiene education

Last term, we were blessed with two foreign national volunteers from United States of America and Jamaica, who passionately took up this project and conducted health, sanitation and hygiene education for the girls of the 6^th to 8^th STD students in 4 Government Schools. They also prepared study materials and also handouts for each of the girls. We were also able to give each of the attendees Sanitary Pads, Tissue rolls, Hand Sanitizer and some hygiene awareness book marks.

It was really shocking for us to find out the grip of menstrual tabu and lack of awareness in most of the girls and how they never enquired from the parents about all the restrictions they were put into during their menstrual period. Thanks to our volunteers who helped us in breaking this tabu and educating the girls about the reason for these superstitious practices and to break out of it and also educating them about menstrual hygiene.

Need of the hour

Proper sanitation facility is the most needed approach in India to stop school dropouts and also to arrest the epidemics. It is found according to the latest statistic that 1.3 crore toilets built by government in our nation remain non-functional and become defunct.

Hence Reaching Hand wants to keep stretching out its hands as far as possible and reach out to as many Govt. Schools as possible with your help and stop this issue from progressing. For doing so, we need your continued support. Thank you for your generous support.

Warm Regards

Reaching hand

Girls waiting for the chief guests for the opening

Inaugral function of Girls Glory

The volunteers who made H&H education possible

Links:

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Jun 9, 2015
The school Girls are in for a surprise-New Toilet!

By Feba Nisha | Communications Officer cum Legal Advisor

The new toilets for Girls of RM Govt. School

True education must correspond to the surrounding circumstances or it is not a healthy growth.- M.K Gandhi

Hoping all of you are doing good. On behalf of Reaching Hand yet again and again and again a big THANK YOU, because of all your generosity over the last three months we have been able to bring a new change in the lives of Girls in Rural Bangalore.

Building of Toilets

The children at Schools were out on School Summer Holidays due to which we were able to work on constructing Toilets in Three Schools and Five more to be completed in the mid of June. Do Scroll down to get a glimpse of the pictures of the new toilets. When the Girls come back after vacation, they are all in for a surprise and as Mahatma Gandhi rightly said we will be able to bring in a healthy growth in them.

Inaugral Program

On May 29th we had the inaugration of the toilets at Ramurthynagar Government School which is one of the Schools we have adopted under our Girls Glory Project. We were previleged to hear from the principal what he had to say about this initiative and how it would help the girls. It was pretty sad condition in this particular School, because all the Girls had to run to their own homes back to use toilets in case of emergency. Now they longer have to do that. Since its a big School we decided to build two more toilets for girls, which is under construction.

Run for Girls Glory

As mentioned in our previous letter, about 90 volunteers from various corporates ran in the marathon conducted by the Tata Consultancy Services on May 17th to raise funds for our Girls Glory Project. It was a success and especially the Children from our New Home ran with a lot of enthusiasm and most of them completed the 5.7Km race. Do look below or onto our Facebook page for the photos of the event.

Painting and Cleaning Programs

We are continuously working on cleaning the surroundings and keeping the class rooms clean and hence atleast thrice every week along with the help of corporate volunteers we paint classrooms of various Schools and also clean the surroundings.

Future Plans

We plan to construct many more toilets and to reach out to every Government School in Bangalore with all of your help and bring in a bright future and healthy and balanced education for the Girls. We have attached a link to the video made by one of our volunteers who is taking an initiative to raise funds to build toilet in a particular School. Do watch it to hear about her experience.

With the help of our donors like you we as an organisation are growing day by day. We'll be attaching on the annual report of all our works last year along with our next report.

Wishing you a wonderful months and may God bless you for all that you are doing to bring a change in the lives of the little Girls.

Warm regards

A quick look inside of Toilets and construction

TCS Marathon Namma Bengaluru 2015

26 of our Children took part in the TCS Marathon

Just Painted Kothanur Govt. School

Links:

#Bathsforthem- A fundraising intiative by an volunteer

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