Project Sakhi

 PROJECT SAKHI- MENSTRUAL HEALTH AWARENESS PROGRAM 

Menstruation awareness is something of a recent phenomenon on a national stage. While women have been working to make hygiene products accessible and erase stigmas for a long time, only recently has it been making public waves. Menstruation awareness emphasises making hygiene products available to those who need them, but it has other facets as well. Menstrual hygiene is a ‘taboo’ topic of sorts, especially in the rural areas of the country. Since it isn’t often discussed, and when it is, with vague and minimal details- there is a lot of fear, confusion and anxiety associated with the word ‘periods’.

 A girl’s first period can be exciting because it is a symbol of entering womanhood. But it can also be confusing and a bit intimidating. That’s because a lot of girls are not equipped with all the right information to manage their first menstrual cycle. It’s rare that periods and feminine hygiene is openly talked about in a way that would make a girl feel at ease with this new stage in life. Society often treats periods and women’s health in general as if it’s something you don’t talk about in public. Menstruation awareness can help erase the stigmas around periods. That doesn’t just apply to girls who will experience menstruation firsthand. Boys need to be in on the conversation too so they know there’s nothing “gross” about a girl being on her period.

 To understand all these thing,On 26th of March, Project Sakhi was organised by Global Society of Social Soldiers. The event started by skit. The skit was about a girl named Shristi who got her first periods at school. She had no idea what was happening with her, why there was blood stain on her clothes? Why her stomach was aching? And many more things she was going through. So, she told her friend about this,Her friend took her to infirmary. The teacher in infirmary made her understand what is periods and what actually happens in periods.  

The main objective of the skit was: • To increase awareness among adolescent girls on Menstrual Hygiene • To increase access to and use of high quality sanitary napkins to adolescent girls in rural areas. • To ensure safe disposal of Sanitary Napkins in an environmentally friendly manner. • To educate everyone about menstruation. • Break the taboos and end the stigma surrounding menstruation • Raise awareness about the challenges regarding access to menstrual products, education about menstruation and period-friendly sanitation facilities We succeeded on conveying our message through skit. It’s really important to educate young people about their periods and feminine hygiene. Because of the stigmas we talked about earlier, some girls may not want to talk to their parents or guardians about their periods. If they hear the facts from reliable sources, they will not have good information to follow, the mystery surrounding periods will go away.

After this skit we had separate session for boys and girls for all the queries they had regarding this topic. In that session we answered all the questions anyone had. Considering the enthusiasm and engagement of both students and teachers the event was a successful one.