By Amita Naigaonkar | Manager: Resource Mobilization
Dear donors,
Hope you are enjoying the warm breeze of spring. It is the time of renewal, growth and new life. Same is with adolescent girls who experience changes in their body during puberty. Mix of feelings and lack of knowledge as to how to handle them!
Adolescent girls constitute a vulnerable group, particularly in India’s slum communities. Menstruation is still considered as something unclean or dirty in many Indian families. The reaction to menstruation depends a lot upon awareness and scientific knowledge about the subject. Although menstruation is a natural process, it is linked with several misconceptions and practices, which sometimes result into adverse health outcomes. To solve those mysteries and superstitions around this topic, we recently conducted sessions on Body Literacy and Menstrual Health for all the girls and women in our project areas.
Body literacy: The results of the pretest showed that most of the girls are not aware of their own body and its functions. Through a game of body puzzle, the resource person beautifully narrated the whole journey from puberty to pregnancy. It was an effortto scientifically explain the processes of the body, its parts and functions to men, women and children of different age groups. This exercise observed a very good response from the girls as the learning took place along with the activity.
Menstrual Health: The resource person was a medical doctor and expert in this subject. Menstrual hygiene, a very important risk factor for reproductive tract infections, is a vital aspect of health education for adolescent girls. But menstruation is still associated with taboos and socio-cultural restrictions in India. It has a negative effect on adolescent girls since they remain ignorant of scientific facts and hygienic health practices. There was pin drop silence in the beginning of the session as they were curious to know more about puberty changes, menstruation, hygienic practices during menstruation, ovulation and fertilization, conception and contraceptive methods. Gradually these girls came up with their doubts as the doctor was ready to break the myths they were carrying for several years. Around 200 girls from various communities benefitted from these sessions and requested us to continue such sessions.
Self defense training:
All these girls live in slums with poor living conditions. Foul language and fights is a usual scene observed by slum dwellers. They have to use common latrines and water taps. Inadequate space, lack of access to basic amenities adds fire in the fights. Domestic torture, eve teasing, stalking, chain snatching, sexual harassment, rape…the list has no end. Slum dwellers observe extremities of such cases. Women have to leave home every day for education, job or even to buy grocery where they can be soft targets for such crimes. The slum itself is no different. They live with a neighbor who could be drunkard, robber, rapist or a criminal. Do you think of a solution?
Yes. Women must learn to fight back the attacker and save themselves. And therefore they were introduced a few simple techniques of Martial Arts from a master trainer on Women’s Day 2015. All the girls and women were very happy to see the demonstrations on ‘how to save life in dangerous situations’. They were introduced to sensitive parts of the body like nose, ribs, private parts, throat and pressure points. Situations like chain snatching and rape were demonstrated with an escape which includes situation analysis and a quick action.
“This session has given us tremendous confidence and skill. I am not afraid of anything anymore”, one of the participants gave a feedback. In fact, now they are requesting more of such sessions so that they could practice it and build their physique. 40 girls and young women were present for this session. We still have to reach out to many more girls in various communities. It is possible only with your generous support.
Thank you donors for reading our story. We greatly rely on you to undertake such activities for spreading awareness.
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