Day of Universal Hygiene for the Menstruation

28 May is the Day of Universal Hygiene for the Menstruation. Members of every sector come together every year to host community activities to raise awareness about effective menstrual hygiene management and the effect it can have on the lives of people.

Ravi Pahuja 13-Jun-2020

Under the theme ‘Periods in Pandemic’, Deepalaya focuses upon urging the underprivileged girls and providing with critical information about maintaining menstrual hygiene. Due to COVID-19, Deepalaya conducted a webinar entirely online for the first time. As we all know that nowadays situation is stressful which directly affects the menstrual cycle of women and there are so many ways to connect girls and advocate them for better global menstrual hygiene.

When it comes to personal health & hygiene – women are facing the brunt of the lockdown when compared to men. Recent data on the number of menstruating girls and women in India is hard to come by.

Menstruation is a natural part of the cycle of reproduction. However, it remains a taboo in most regions, and is rarely discussed. Keeping the same in mind today, the session was conducted with over 50 girls from our projects. This included simple but rather relevant menstrual hygiene tips, knowledge about my trial process, and an awareness session on various period-attached myths and biases. This has also put a lot of emphasis on sanitation and health management.

We did story telling session with them and sensitized them about all good menstrual hygienic practices such as using sanitary napkins; washing and cleaning; how to dispose of sanitary napkins, followed by period precautions and dietary habits to allow them to lead a healthy reproductive life in the future.

A lively conversation took place and girls asked lots of questions, inquiries and even gave their insights about their menstrual experiences. We discussed the importance of a day like today where it brings out these supposed shameful things out in the public and proves the need to talk about them for better health and safer menstrual experiences of women.

On the occasion of this day Deepalaya understands the important to recognize the rights of all women to be able to access correct and up to date information on MHM procedures and to remove the notion of shame and disgust from such a natural process.

Our staff from project parivartan, Mohali, Punjab also celebrated this day by sending Power Point Presentations and videos to students. They were actively trying to make sure that access to these vital resources: WASH facilities, menstrual hygiene products and information, DO NOT STOP during a pandemic.

It gets even more important to maintain the hygiene level in these tough times, and we are happy to sensitize them online as our girls found it very useful because session addressed so many questions they have during this global crisis.

Pandemic or no pandemic, Deepalaya is continuing to sensitize their students and to reinforce calls for inclusive development this Menstrual Hygiene Day 2020.

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Ravi Pahuja

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