Navratri festival has a significant importance in our culture. It is a festival that we celebrate to worship the nine forms of the goddess Durga, the divine feminine force. It is a celebration of feminism, devotion, and righteousness. One of the most loved traditions during this festival is Kanjak Pooja where young girls are worshipped as divine feminine.
At Prazna Foundation, we believe that true empowerment goes beyond celebration and to create a long-lasting impact on the lives of young girls and women we believe in practical actions and spreading awareness about a crucial aspect of womanhood, that is menstrual hygiene.
Prazna Foundation has been dedicated to working to empower women, their education, and menstrual hygiene during periods since 2019. This Menstrual Hygiene Program started when our founder and chairperson, Preeti Sharma realized how girls and women from backward areas and slum areas lack basic menstrual hygiene awareness. That’s how we launched our awareness program Project Kishori. Through this program, till now we have visited several slum areas and 80+ government schools and provided them with the necessary knowledge and things needed to manage the periods hygienically.
The Crucial Need for Menstrual Awareness Program
One of the major problems is the lack of awareness about using sanitary napkins and how to dispose of them. What most women in our country don’t know is how crucial it is to hygienically manage menstruation. Our NGO has made sure to bring a change in society by providing women with valuable knowledge through our menstrual hygiene awareness program about Menstrual Health Care, we give them valuable information about how to manage menstruation with proper products, hygiene, and also the right process to dispose of the used sanitary napkin so that our environment should also remain clean.
Our society has always treated this topic as taboo, but through Project Kishori, we are working to end the shame attached to the word ‘period.’ We ensure that our sessions educate not only girls but also boys about the importance of menstruation in a woman’s life. Boys learn how to support women during this time, as they face numerous challenges while managing household chores, jobs, and other daily responsibilities.
We should always remember that if periods didn’t happen to women, none of us would be here.
How Project Kishori Empowering Women
Through Project Kishori, we’re spreading awareness through our knowledge sessions conducted in government schools, slum areas, and Anganwadi, where girls and women come from backward backgrounds and lack basic sanitation facilities and knowledge about periods. In our society, we don’t talk about periods openly because people treat it as a topic of shame, but it is truly something to be proud of. We are trying our best with our team to normalize this topic and empower women and help them build confidence to live freely in society by making people understand with our knowledge sessions that it’s a completely natural process and how important it is for women to have periods.
Along with our workshops for girls and women of backward areas, we also distribute a Hygiene Kit to them, which includes sanitary napkins, underwear, savlon, paper soap, garbage bags, and a handkerchief, all these things are important for menstrual hygiene.
With our knowledge session, we clear the doubts of young girls having any questions and doubts about menstruation, as some girls hesitate to ask questions about menstruation even to their mothers. We are making them understand that it’s a natural process that every woman has to go through, so they learn early and don’t hesitate to talk about menstruation.
Importance of Having Open Conversations About Periods
We should normalize talking about periods as it’s a natural process and a sign of a girl’s healthy growth. Normalizing this topic from the beginning helps children open up about their feelings as they experience hormonal changes and need emotional support
After having a conversation about menstruation, young girls feel comfortable and emotionally supported and they can ask any doubt they might have due to various myths and inaccurate information spreading around.
As much as it is important to give young girls proper knowledge about periods, it is also crucial to teach them how to properly dispose the used pads to maintain hygiene around us. Having open conversations also allows individuals to feel empowered and informed about their bodies, leading to better health outcomes.
Let’s break the silence and end the stigma around menstruation together.
You can Also Check: How Project Kishori is Changing Lives of Adolescent Girl
