Menstrual Hygiene Awareness in tribal women by strengthening livelihoods

The vast majority of women and girls belonging to Gond and Madiya tribes, residing in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra, use rags, leaves or mud instead of sanitary napkins. There is a lack of affordable menstrual products in tribal areas of Gadchiroli. Spending the menstruating days in a separate hut, gaokor, keeps women from participating in everyday household and socioeconomic activities, resulting in a loss of economic activity. These inhabitable kurmaghar or gaokor lack amenities required for fulfilling basic human needs. In order to succeed in banishing this practice in future, it is mandatory to offer economic empowerment to the women in addition to providing health awareness about proper hygienic methods to manage their menstrual health and hygiene.

Sensitization and awareness about Menstrual Health Management

·         Set up a reusable cloth pad making enterprise involving tribal young girls.

·         Train 500 young girls to make reusable cloth pads

·         Train at least 50 young girl in account and stock keeping

·         Identify and train at least 50 Sakhi or Peer educators to in a village

·         Undertake 1 awareness campaign per month about the importance of using reusable cloth pads and its maintenance

·         Provide free supply of reusable cloth pads for a period of 1 year in Gaokor (Kurmaghar)

·         Develop old cloth drop-in and sorting centre at the SHG centre

The project intends to provide livelihood to tribal women by training them on making reusable cloth pads. This economic activity will also help in sensitizing the target women population about hygienic practices to manage menstrual health and create a demand for safe products. Thus the dual objective project will engage girls and women in earning income and empowering them with better menstrual health management (MHM) practices. The envisaged project intends to build an enterprise model on a pilot basis in the tribal areas where young girls would be fostered to make reusable cloth pads. The project will be implemented in 20 villages with a majority of the population belonging to the Tribal community. The pilot project aims to generate awareness and demand for the low cost sanitary napkins as an effective alternative to manage menstruation. Since, without availing effective alternatives for, girls and women will not be motivated to adopt new behavioral practices. Hence, the project will make sure production, promotion and use of the reusable cloth pad is done by the target beneficiaries themselves