Last year (2018-19) our teams held menstrual awareness sessions with more than 400 adolescent girls and women in slums, shelter homes, government schools in Delhi/NCR alone (apart from similar ongoing menstrual hygiene work in rural India). Many of these young girls move to cities from villages.and end up in slums with little or no sanitation facilities.
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In India, 1.8 Crore women with disability, more than 5 Crore women from tribal community, 6.5 Crore migrant women, 20+ lakh sex workers are missing their voices in addressing their challenges around menstruation.These voices must be heard.. Their menstrual challenges must come into the larger mapping of Menstrual Hygiene Management narrative.
To know more about Goonj’s Not Just A Piece initiative,
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In Sub-Himalayan region of West Bengal’s Alipurduar district, women are the major workforce comprising tea garden estates; they are the primary labor engaged in the process of cultivation and harvesting. While there is huge focus on production, women who toil the whole day, their menstrual hygiene and sanitation take a backseat on most cases.
Lack of menstrual health awareness and sanitation implies that women are more susceptible to infections and allergies.
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“Earlier we were eating only onion & chili but now we eat green vegetables!.” shared Jamna Devi from Dahi Mata village in Udaipur. Vegetables have more or less disappeared from the diet of women in villages across India. Working with women on the issue of menstrual hygiene and management in Rajasthan, our teams set out to mobilize and encourage women to build their own kitchen gardens!
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Lakshmi doesn’t touch animals during menstruation because she was told that the animals might die and she could fall sick due to “impure blood”. Subashini, never touches any male, even by mistake during her menstruation days as she was told that her “impurity” will pass on to them. Megala makes sure she doesn’t come in front of her husband or anyone who is traveling out from the house at the time of her periods because she was told seeing a menstruating woman’s face brings bad luck.
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We know that cloth is a basic need of a woman as is her self-respect and dignity . The symbiotic relationship between these two defines Goonj’s ‘Not Just a Piece of Cloth’ (NJPC) initiative. We started with the simple- of making cotton cloth available to women.
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The environmental disaster around menstruation right in our midst, in the cities. Allowing this same scenario to repeat itself in the villages, will be something all of us working on this issue, will have to be accountable for in times to come.
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The unbearable trauma we can sense in the words of Shalu, Farzana, and thousands of nameless girls; the desperation, shame, unhealthy practices, compulsion, and painful silence that seems to be an inevitable outcome...
Read More >Cloth is a basic need of a woman as is her self-respect and dignity. It is this symbiotic relationship between the two that calls for, “Not just a piece of cloth”. So Goonj started with the simple activity — of making a clean cotton cloth available...
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This deeply taboo issue has many impacts, which are still not part of the bigger discourse. This story touches upon some dimensions of how menstruation can be a monthly disaster for women...
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