Utkarsh and Menstrupedia have come together to conduct menstrual awareness workshops in rural parts of Gujarat and have managed to reach girls in 4 villages in the last few months. We have been able to educate over 1000 girls as well as their mothers and teachers, empowering them with the knowledge of their body and breaking the taboo around periods. We want to take this menstrual awareness drive to 5 more villages, but we need your help to achieve this goal. During our workshops, we realised the need for a holistic menstrual solution for young girls and thus, this time we are planning to not only educate them about periods, but also provide them with a yearly supply of sanitary napkins along with installing an incinerator in their village to safely dispose off menstrual waste.
What do we plan to do with the funds?
Utkash and Menstrupedia want to equip 100 girls in each village with end-to-end menstrual awareness and solution and aim to cover 5 such villages. We plan to utilize the funds raised with your help to procure necessary materials, make them reach the girls as well as to pay trainers to conduct menstrual awareness workshops. The broad break-up of the amount will be as follows:-
25.8% of Total Amount will be spent on Menstrupedia Comics that will educate girls about periods and how to take care of themselves when they are menstruating (See http://www.menstrupedia.com/comic/english)
55.7% of Total Amount will be spent in providing a yearly supply of sanitary napkins for the girls we reach out to.
12.2% of Total Amount will be spent in managing the logistics of supply of the products as well as fees of the trainer who will be conducting these workshops in schools.
FAQs
Q. Why is menstrual education for young girls important in the villages of India?
A. In the next 5 years, about 55 million girls are going to get their first period and about 18 million will have no idea about it. About 8 million of these girls will not know that menstruation is a natural biological process that is more of a gift than a curse. Moreover, the deafening silence and shame around the topic of periods is resulting into poor mental and physical health of adolescent girls, affecting not only their academic performance but also their confidence and self-esteem. A simple 2-hour workshop on growing up and periods for them can go a long way in clearing the myths and fears related to the changes happening in their body and can help a girl stay in school to continue her education, instead of dropping out.
Q. Have you done such workshops earlier?
A. Menstrupedia has been working for a long time on menstrual education. We know the depth of the problems that women in both rural and urban regions face during menses and to take the first step to solve this problem we developed the Menstrupedia Comic - A friendly guide to periods for young girls. This comic book contains all the information that a pubscent girl needs to make her aware of biology behind periods and how to take care of oneself through that time of the month, addressing key issues of both nutrition and hygiene. Menstrupedia has undertaken a successful Period Project with the Gandhi Fellows in Udaipur, where we enabled menstrual education for girls from 15 schools of rural Rajasthan. You can read about it here. Utkarsh and Menstrupedia have already started working in rural Gujarat for the same cause and now want to take this project to more villages.
Q. Would I be able to get tax exemption for my contribution to this campaign?
A. Yes. Your funds will be transferred to Utkarsh Charitable Trust, which is a registered non-profit whose 80-G certificate can be downloaded by you from the Milaap Page. Please get in touch with us for further details at info@utkarshtrust.org
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