60 Dignified Days for a Woman

The pictures you see here is of Goonj team member Chiranjeet talking to women of Bundelkhand about their menstrual health and hygiene..

Bundelkhand region includes some parts of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh states of India. Goonj started working in this region in 2016 when we first noticed communities struggling with a severe drought. What started with drought relief work soon turned into long term work on many other issues connecting with the difficult lives of Bundelkhandis..

These pictures are important for two reasons; one because it’s still a rare sight for a man to be talking to a group of women about menstruation, especially in the villages. Two, when Chiranjeet recently went back to these same women from Keyolari and Rasoi village of Lalitpur district for a menstrual hygiene session, they welcomed him saying "Humno saab paato hai" (We know everything about menstrual hygiene practices around the cloth we use..)

They started off in unison, "Pehelo kapraan ko garam paani or sabun se dhot huiye uske baad dhup mai sukhaat or istemaal karno so pehele saaf jaiga mai rakhno hoth hai.” (First we need to wash the cloth with hot water or soap, dry it in sunlight and keep it in a safe place before using it for menses.)

“These were my exact same words in an NJPC session almost a year back!! They still remember them and practice them,” Chiranjeet shares disbelievingly.

It has been just 2 years since Goonj started work here, including  its menstrual health & hygiene work (under Not Just a Piece of cloth initiative) but the response and results in this short period  have been beyond expectation.

In his earlier menstrual discussions in another village (Thatkhera village) with almost 40 women, Chiranjeet found that not a single woman there was able to afford even cotton cloth. “When we go to the fields to work the whole day while we are menstruating, it is a bad situation as the cloth is completely soiled. We feel really embarrassed and ashamed but what can one do, we have to go on working any way.” a woman from among them.

Another said, “The cloth pads (Goonj's MY Pads) we have received in the family kit, are more useful for us than those sarees (in the kit).”

Now along with its larger community development work in Bundelkhand, team Goonj ensures that these women have excess cloth for their menstruation.

Now women surround Chiranjit in these awareness meetings to openly share and know more on menstrual hygiene. This year in Bundelkhand alone, such meetings were held in 30 villages in the Banda and Lalitpur district while more than 1000 MY Pad Dignity kits were reached out to women in this region.

(*A Goonj Dignity Kit has 10 re-usable cloth pads, 2 undergarments, and a lot of awareness about do's and don'ts of menstrual hygiene) A woman commented on MY Pad - https://www.facebook.com/njpc.goonj/videos/683771031787933/

Links:

• Why it's 'Not Just a Piece of Cloth'
• A woman from Bundelkhand commented on MY Pad
• Media article by Business Standard