By K.R.Renuka | Director
Life skill, Sexuality Education for 1000 girls-India
Update June 2020
On 20th March 2020, the Covid-19 lockdown is announced in Tamilnadu and at the National level on 24th and still it continues. Schools were closed, millions of workers become jobless, public transport is stopped, except the essential shops like vegetable and groceries all other shops were closed. But we (social workers) become busy involved in Covid -19 relief activities within the limitations of the lockdown. Of course we could not continue our regular activities like community meetings, weekend lifeskill and sexuality education workshops.
Actually prior to the lockdown we have started our public awareness programme on Covid-19, by moving around in auto rickshaw with public addressing system educating the public about Covid-19 the precautions to be taken. But after lockdown we could not continue it. Once lockdown was announced and people become jobless, we have started distributing relief materials like rice, dal, cooking oil. We have distributed it to 2000 women in our working area, with whom we have been working. Since the schools were closed the children were not getting the free midday meals and the adolescent girls the free sanitary pads. The lack of proper menstrual health management may lead to greater risks and infections. So, we have decided to address this issue.
We have sent a memorandum to The Chief Minister of Tamilnadu to continue the free sanitary pad scheme and distribute it to the adolescent girls’ homes. This is also covered by the media and reached public and policy makers. Due to lack of money and gender perspective hardly any government money goes towards poor adolescents’ girls. We have started collecting local donations to distribute sanitary pads to adolescent girls from our working area. On 28th May, International Menstrual Hygiene Day We have distributed 2 packets of sanitary pads, a soap, 2 masks and a printed learning material on managing menstrual hygiene during Covid-19 to 1500 adolescent girls from 50 slums. We have also collected old toys, books and distributed among children in our working area. We have started conducting our staff meetings through video conferencing but we could not do it with the adolescent girls, because most of them do not have smartphones or internet connections. Due to this they also could not attend the online classes conducted by the schools, all these may lead many girls drop out of schools, we are looking for ways of helping these girls. We are also planning to distribute supplementary nutrition for adolescents’ girls. If you wish to donate for this activity please visit our new project in GlobalGiving: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/periods-dont-stop-for-covid-19-pandemics/
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