Category: News

While the hall buzzed with enthusiastic conversations amongst boys and girls, SafeNHappy Periods held a workshop at IIT Bombay. Invited by AEVENUE, Sarika Gupta looked upon a class of more boys than girls eager to enlighten themselves about the journey of a girl ready for procreation; a girl on her period.

A whole line-up of statistical data and research aimed at breaking away from the taboo that surrounds menstruation, especially among rural women. In an experience shared by Mrs Sarika, she explained how one of the women in a rural area living in a joint family would share one piece of cloth between three women. The sheer lack of ignorance and hygiene prompted Sarika to initiate the campaign and invite people of all ages to join her.

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“Safe N’ Happy Periods” was invited by Rave Technologies India Pvt. Ltd. (an IT software and services company based in Worli, Mumbai) to conduct a short workshop as part of their Women’s Day initiative for social awareness.

The workshop was held at Kamathipura, for girls and women associated with the NGO Oasis India. Oasis India is an NGO who work for the betterment of underprivileged women and children. At their Kamathipura centre they are involved in providing safe shelter and homes for children in an unsafe environment, engage them in after-school education and activities and help them find appropriate employment. This way they help girl victims of human trafficking and daughters of the sex workers in Kamathipura to achieve a bright future.

The workshop went very well. The girls and women were very interested and listened carefully. They learned about the biological importance of menstruation, the right menstrual hygiene practices, the different sanitary products they could use and the right way to dispose sanitary napkins. Besides this, they learned ways to reduce pain through yoga and the need to discard superstitions and myths surrounding menstruation. Educating these girls and women about the importance of menstruation and menstrual hygiene is all the more important as most have not had access to the right information and resources, until now. This workshop provided them with vital information, while also helping them to feel more secure about their menstrual cycles and bodies, which is an important step to empowerment.

We were very happy to conduct this informative interactive session for these girls and women. This workshop has been an exciting and inspiring event for both the attending girls as well as for us and our international volunteers. We hope to work with Oasis India and Rave Technologies in the future to reach even more girls and women in the same situation.