With an aim to spread awareness about the importance of menstrual hygiene, our team decided to visit Pandua village in Puri district of Odisha. During the visit we found out that most of the women there barely had any information around menstrual issues. They use cloth but maintenance of hygiene is usually overlooked. Also, our team observed that there were no bathrooms in the village and women had to bathe and change in the open.
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In a society which usually treats issues surrounding menstruation as a stigma and a taboo, the outlook of people of Rajasthan‘s Kharadi Phala village towards this subject is a testament to the positive change which is slowly, but steadily engulfing the country.
Situated approximately 70 km from Udaipur, Kharadi Phala houses around 290 families.
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Kappuri Devi, 33, a Goonj volunteer from Jharkhali-III village in South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal. An epitome of passion, dedication and inspiration, she has not only helped Team Goonj to mobilise people of her community to rebuild houses and infrastructure destroyed in Cyclone Amphan but has also built new assets under Goonj’s ‘Dignity For Work’ #DFW initiative,
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When we started working in Bundelkhand, our utmost priority was to reach the tribes of the hilly remote areas, and Bharatpura is one such village in Lalitpur district of the region. During the pandemic, adhering to all health guidelines and needs, we had started our ‘Dignity For Work’ (DFW) initiative in the village where the community cleaned a modest patch of land and leveled it up with soil to make a playground for children.
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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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