Girls Glory - Improve Menstrual Health in India

As someone rightly said, “Cleanliness is the first law of Health", Reaching Hand organized a Health and Hygiene and Menstrual Hygiene workshop in 6 Government schools. The workshops focused on building awareness about WASH and MHM practices.

Our workshop had visual aids and participatory activities to make it eventful and easy to follow. 

"Change is the constant"! As the environment changes day by day, its important to change our behaviour and lifestyle. Briging this change from the student level, helps the household and the community. Any change in behavior is difficult to achieve, particularly in a short term, as it is very personal and influenced by cultue and social aspects, particularly menstrual practices.

Hence, we must address it simultaneously at different levels - household and schools, to increase the chances of its acceptance and implementation in the day to day life. The workshops therefore began with helping the children understand their current knowledge and practices pertaining to hygiene. The session closed with participants gaining a clear understanding of the best practices and changing their behavior and practices in terms of WASH and MHM.

METHODOLOGY USED:

The participatory workshop included activities, open discussion, scenarios, Storytelling, pictorial images, MHM and Hand washing animated images. All these aimed at facilitating an easy understanding by all the age group of students. 

WASH AWARENESS PROGRAMME:

Personal hygiene plays a major role to protect our health and to live a healthy life. WASH awareness programme was conducted in 6 schools. GHPS Doddaballapura city, GHPS Thubgere, GHS Hoshalli, GHPS.Tavarekere, GHPS; Doddaagrahara, GHPS Hoisalkatte C N Halli Tumkur.for 1190 students. Beneficiaries were oriented on importance Of maintaining cleanliness in restrooms, hygienic use of toilets, role of personal hygiene including hand wash.

WASH AWARENESS PROGRAMME:

Around 1190 students were benefitted by our workshops. 

Sensitization covered the following major components 

• Oral Hygiene (with 4 steps)
• Bathing Ritual
• Hair Care
• Foot Hygiene

• Toileting Hygiene

•  

  Hand Hygiene (with 6 steps of hand washing)
• Coughing and Sneezing Hygiene
• Skin Hygiene

MENSTRUAL HYGIENE MANAGEMENT:

Menstrual hygiene awareness programs were conducted in 6 schools for 622 girls. Students were oriented on the importance of maintaining and practicing menstrual hygiene, safe disposal of sanitary napkins, myths and taboos etc.

Workshops were started with the ice breaking session to make the beneficiaries comfortable with the topic. Following inputs were imparted to the children during the session: 

• Socio-cultural beliefs and taboos surrounding menstruation
• Girls’ understanding and knowledge of menstruation
• Current menstrual hygiene practices in schools
• Teaching of puberty
• Interpersonal relationships
• Psycho-social support
• Recommendations for better menstrual hygiene management
• Students were educated on importance of adopting good menstrual hygiene practice to enjoy good
• Health in pursuing their education; best practices on hygiene management

OUTCOMES:

• Girls have an understanding on how to calculate their menstrual cycle, which was one of the major drawbacks as most of the girls come un`prepared to school during their menstruation days
• Menstrual Hygiene Management was explained during the sensitization workshop.
• Girls are now acquainted with the proper usage and disposal of sanitary napkins.
• Workshops created the environment for the students to openly discuss their issues and problems faced during their menstruation.

 WASH COMMITTEE: 

WASH Committee were formed in all the 6 schools. Prior to that, students who were interested in the health leadership were short listed and oriented to participate in the campaign/election. After the campaign, all the students exercised their franchise and cast their votes to select their leaders.Totally 622 girls actively participated and casted their valuable votes and elected their WASH committee leaders in all the 6 schools.

WASH committee leader is responsible for sanitation cleanliness in schools. The team will be rewarded during our monitoring visits for the cleanliness of the restrooms.

MENSTRUPEDIA COMIC BOOK DISTRIBUTION:

Menstrupedia comic is the period guide for girls of 9 years old and above. It is a guide to educate the girls on menstruration.It aims to help girls understand the process of puberty in women, It seeks to destroy myths and to normalize the biological process. 

It helps girls to understand their bodies better and not let society shame them for their biological make. It addresses the adolescence girls who haven’t started their menstruration cycle yet and want to learn more about it. Also it helps the girls who have just started their cycle and want advice on how to prepare themselves.

INSTALLATION OF INCINERATOR:

Installed incinerator in all the 6 -schools and oriented the girls and the school staffs on how to use it in a right manner. Explained the "do's and don’ts" while using the incinerator.

Case study:

I am Mounica studing in GHS Hoshalli school, Our school is located in Tumkur rural area, Reaching hand Staff was conducted the Health and hygiene session for all the school students ,it was very useful session we were not aware of the Hand Washing and Tooth brushing steps it was a great leaning for all of us.

I didn’t have fear about puberty but I didn’t know the "do and don’ts" of Menstrual Hygiene practices. The last session was very interesting and helpful. Girl children were oriented on the importance of maintaining and practicing menstrual hygiene, safe disposal of sanitary napkins, myths and taboos. 

About Toilet building, the one which we had was very old, not clean, smelly, adolescent girls were not very comfortable during their periods, as lack of disposal facility and due to lack of knowledge girls use to throw used pads in school premises. Now we not only have a clean toilet built by Reaching Hand but also incinerator to burn used pads. Thanks to Reaching Hand.

Menstruation cycles do not stop during pandemic! Many girl children are not educated on Puberty even in this 21st century. There are loads of menstrual stigma and taboos about menstruation  even in the rural areas of metro cities like Bengaluru. Hence, our responsibility is to continue to reach out to the Girl students through schools and train them on how to handle their puberty changes physically and mentally.

 MENSTRUPEDIA COMIC BOOKS AND MHM KIT DISTRIBUTION

Along with the training, we came up with a material called “Menstrupedia”. It is a comic on period guide for girls ages 9 and above. Menstrupedia comic is a guide to educate the girls around the world on menstruation. Menstrupedia aims to help girls understand the process of puberty in women. It seeks to destroy myths around menstruation and to normalize the biological process. Our focus is to hide distributing the comic book to break the taboos from children's hearts. The perception of menstruation has to be changed.

It helps girls to understand their bodies better and not let society shame them for their biology. It represents a stage of adolescence girls who haven’t started their period yet and want to learn more about them, girls who have just started their period and want advice on how to prepare for them and girls who have had periods for some time and might be curious about the myths surrounding them, We believe this book is helping all the girls to be strong and overcome shyness which is associated with being a girl in this society.

 RENOVATING THE TOILET

Renovation of existing non-functional restrooms and construction of Restrooms in the schools, were taken up as per UNICEF usage norms of 1:35 (1toilet for 35 children). After choosing the best location in consultation with the school management, contractors from the empaneled contractors, were assigned construction work through ‘Work Orders’ with detailed specifications with quality check, monitoring and payment norms. Our Reaching Hand team visits the field to monitor the Progress of work jointly by the school management. Renovation and Construction of restrooms in 4 schools successfully completed and handed over the respective school management. After toilet building completion keys were handed over to the school management .

INSTALLATION OF INCINERATOR

The Incinerators have been installed in all the 4 schools, the below are pictures depicting the same. Leader of the school showed the demo of handwashing to other children as during the pandemic we need to be very careful.                        

REGULAR MONITORING VISIT

The project coordinator carried out regular monitoring visits to all the  schools to check how school management is using the toilet and how they are maintaining it.

 FEED BACK 

“I was not confident to go to school during my periods, but now I attend school without any embarrassment.” I am Sandhya studying at Shri Mannamma High School Hebbalgere. Today’s Menstrual Hygiene session was very insightful for all the girls. Since our school belongs to the Hebbal Gege (Chennagiri), a rural village area, menstruation and menstrual practices still face many social, cultural, and religious restrictions which are a big barrier for girls to continue their education. I am so lucky to be part of this session. In village areas, girls are not prepared or made aware of menstruation, so we face many difficulties and challenges at home and at school. Girls and women have very less or no knowledge about reproductive tract infections caused due to ignorance of personal hygiene during the menstruation period. Today, I learned how to take care of myself during my monthly cycle. I learned about all the physical changes that happen, how to be prepared for my next cycle, the right way of using a sanitary pad and to change pads every 4-6 hours, proper hygiene practices during periods, how to prevent infections, the right way of disposing sanitary pads, how to use the incinerator machine and taboos are menstruation.

The session was very knowledgeable and easy to understand. Now I feel more confident during my monthly cycle I can come to school without any embarrassment, “I was not confident before but after this session, I feel more positive, and my self-esteem has improved. Thank you so much for boosting my confidence and making me feel safe in the school environment.”

The following list provides an overview of the project

3800 Masks and sanitizers were distributed in the community