By Jyoti Singh | Project Lead
Hi everyone,
Happy Valentine’s Day to all!
This Valentine’s week, we have organized an awareness workshop on menstrual hygiene management and distributed hygiene kits to the underserved women & adolescent girls in the Agra district. More than 120 girls and women were participated and received knowledge on healthy periods & the importance to maintain hygiene during menstruation. The beneficiaries’ age was 13 to 35 years.
The Smiley Days team shared the knowledge and information on below topics;
However, through this project we try to spread awareness among the underserved communities in Agra district Uttar Pradesh that menstruation may come naturally to most women & girls, a number of factors including limited resources, lack of sanitary facilities and products and myths may hinder the practice of proper menstrual hygiene. Good menstrual hygiene practices would largely impact the confidence and empowerment of women and girls to complete developmental and personal tasks with dignity.
Views sharing session has provided an opportunity for the participated girls and women to share their experiences and challenges during the periods;
Many of the young girls have shared that they feel shy and uncomfortable talking about periods as their mothers say that KEEP IT SECRET THAT YOU ARE MENSTRUATING.
Seema (name changed), an adolescent girl of age 16 said that my mother restricts me to wash my hair during my periods, as she says it will affect my eyes or I may be blind in future. Is it true? Well, I have to follow my mother’s rules so I don’t wash my hair in those five days. But I want to know the truth behind it.
Our Project team has interacted with many girls like Seema during the workshop and tried to motivate them to follow healthy practices during periods and as a young generation; we need to break such taboos that are associated with the natural period's call.
At the end of the workshop, all the participants were happy and promised to follow healthy practices to stay happy and confident. They have received a Smiley hygiene kit that includes sanitary napkins, face mask, sanitizer, soap, toothbrush, paste, shampoo etc.
Thank you for your support!
Warm Regards,
Team IDF
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