Thursday 28 May 2020

THE RED STAIN – menstruation matters


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!

Happy Menstrual Hygiene Day!

-Pooja Sarkar 


FOOD AND MOOD

FOOD AND MOOD  By Dr. Pragati (MBBS, MD) The link between diet and emotions stems from the close relationship between brain and gastrointe...