How can we spread awareness about menstrual hygiene amongst girls from low-income background?
Meet Keerthi, Aryan, Gowri and Srishti (Grade 9th)
Team Code Red, All Rounded Performance Award Winner
Keerthi, Aryan, Gowri and Srishti, 14-years old students, learnt girls from low-economic background do not have basic knowledge about Menstruation. This lack of knowledge and poor sanitary practices often affects their school attendance, performance and even health!
Idea
They began ideating on how they can solve this problem and came up with a few ideas. While discussing their ideas with their mentors, they realised they lacked an understanding of the problem. Hence, decided to first go to a government school and learn about the practices currently followed by the girls. And this helped! They learnt that the girls were given Sanitary Napkins by the government but did not know how to use the pad or how to track their cycles.
Our plan is to conduct informative workshops with girls of as many government schools as possible. We want to enable them to reach their full potential and educating them is the key to that.
Solution Implemented
On the basis of their interactions with the girls, they designed an informative workshop to educate the girls. Once they were prepared, they went back to the schools and started conducting the sessions. They started the sessions by showing the girls an animated movie that explained everything about menstruation in detail. After this, they did a live demonstration to show how to use a sanitary napkin. Towards the end of the session, they gave each girl a Menstrual Hygiene Kit consisting of information pamphlets, calendar to track their cycles and a hot water bottle to reduce their pain during cramps. The cost of these kits came out to Rs. 7,200 in total, which they fundraised from their neighbours.
We show the girls a video in their vernacular language that explains the science behind menstruation and the sanitation methods that should be followed during that time.
Impact Created
In a period of 4 months, they have conducted 12 workshops in over 8 government schools and orphanages. Through this, they have impacted over 500 girls.
In a survey they conducted, 92% of the girls reported that the sessions were ‘very helpful’. They are now expanding their initiative to educate more and more girls.
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