THE RED STAIN – menstruation matters
May 28th
– THE MENSTRUAL HYGEINE DAY
Menstrual
Hygiene Day is an annual awareness day to highlight the importance of menstrual
hygiene management. Menstruation is a natural process in every girl’s and
woman’s life and thus access to safe and hygienic menstruation is a fundamental
need for women and girls. Menstrual Hygiene Day was initiated by the German
based NGO-WASH United in 2014. The main objective of this day is to normalize
the activity of menstruation and highlight the importance of access to clean
and hygienic periods. The 28th date symbolizes the 28 days average
length of menstrual cycle.
The
global theme of this year is IT’S TIME
FOR ACTION. The theme highlights the need and urgency for the collective
work towards breaking the taboos and changing the negative social norms
surrounding menstruation and work towards empowering women and girls to unlock
every opportunities.
HEEALS
has been doing menstrual hygiene workshops in different states like Haryana,
Uttar Pradesh,Uttrakhand, Himachal Pradesh ,leh & Ladakh,Rajasthan and
Delhi and hopefully in coming years they will be doing many workshops in other
states as well.These
workshops have had a focus on healthy and safe menstrual hygiene practices. For
many years HEEALS has been stepping out and distributing sanitary pads to girls
and women in different areas of the states. Despite of distributing every
facilities and products, there are still many places where women don’t talk
freely about menstruation health problems.Given
that menstruation is still overwhelming considered secret women's business,
young girls are taught from a young age they have to manage it privately and discreetly.
Many women
don’t speak about this natural human process, it only amplifies the feelings of
uncertainty, fear, and embarrassment among them.
Since there is a lack of
discussion about menstruation in India, this year too, HEEALS is focusing on creating
a cultural environment that welcomes discussion and improve girls’ and women’s
menstrual health and hygiene by supporting them with facilities and access to
feminine hygienic products which includes pads, soaps, tampons, etc.
Here at HEEALS, we are
working hard to promote discussion around menstruation through workshops with
school girls and women and their families. There are many factors that are
preventing them to buy and use the product, one of them being the
unavailability of financial support to buy sanitary pads from the stores. The
other reason being girls are ashamed to have purchased the products in public
and even these reasons. By distributing sanitary pads and discussing with them
about the importance of hygiene, we are hoping that soon girls and women would
be motivated to talk and begin to use the sanitary napkins regularly ensuring safety.
HEEALS
relies on our generous sponsors and donors in order to be able to run our
workshops and provide sanitary pads. If you are interested in providing
financial support for our menstrual hygiene management workshops or our ‘Pads
for Girls’ project, please connect with communications@heeals.org. You can also support girls in
menstruation by talking and creating awareness among them. Also, create
awareness among your families, friends and neighbours. Ensure that girls and
women around you are educated about the safety measures.
If you haven’t already, be sure to ‘like’ HEEALS’ page
on Facebook and follow us on Instagram and Twitter!
-Pooja Sarkar
