Support monthly sanitary napkins for five girls

Ashima Begum is a student of Class XI from the village of Morigaon District, Assam. To reach the school one has to travel through an inhospitable terrain for a two km stretch of broken road. The devastating flood of last year has inflicted irreparable damage to the road. There are around 300 girl students in the school. Ashima, a frail and pale girl of around 15 has to walk two km to the river bank, take a country boat to cross, walk another km to reach school. Her parents are marginal farmers who are hardly making a living with the meager farm income and occasional hard labor in others fields. She is the second one out of the seven siblings. Her elder sister, who never went to any school save a year or two in a small Madrassa, is now married. She is 17 but already has a child in her lap. She is expecting a second child. Ashima's parents are unhappy because they think she is wasting her time by going to school. Luckily for her, the school is not only free but gives a midday meal, school uniform and all books, her only expenditure is commuting by boat. Ashima misses her school three to four days every month when she has her periods,. When our volunteers inquired from the students, only two had heard about sanitary pads. Even the daughter of a teacher at the same school, who is in class XI, had not heard of the existence of such pads. They use dirty cloth pads, to contain the trickle down, which they hide out of shame.There is an urgent need to educate the girls about menstrual hygiene. Unfortunately even if they are convinced that using sanitary pads is a must for their health and hygiene, no one in the school can spend towards the cost of buying the pads from the market. Even if the parents can afford, they themselves are unaware of its importance and they will consider it as an infrastructure expenditure. This is a serious problem that needs immediate redress. **You can donate with confidence because every program on our platform is [GIVEASSURED](https://www.giveindia.org/giveassured).**

SENEH's sanitary napkin program aims to address the issue of menstrual hygiene. They conducted a study in an all-girls school located in a small semi urban locality. The study included a medical camp mainly by female doctors to ascertain the health and hygiene standards of the adolescent rural school going girl children from very poor backgrounds. The entire student population of the school was taken as the sample size. A shocking revelation was that 92 percent do not use sanitary napkins. They use unhygienic dirty torn clothes to arrest the flow trickling down. 32% of the girls avoided school during this period. To support the girls and improve the hygiene and overall sanitation, SENEH aims to distribute sanitary napkins free of cost. The sanitary napkins will be purchased in bulk from wholesalers which will benefit them with a discount. Every quarter SENEH's staff will travel to both the schools and distribute the napkins directly to the beneficiaries.

Bhavada Devi Philanthropic Trust is working for the benefit of the underprivileged and deprived sections of the society, especially women of North East India.The old and the infirm suffer, sinc their children in many cases are dumping them to fend for themselves out of economic compulsions. Women in the age group of fifty and above are the ones who suffer the most, because they are mentally and physically vulnerable.To alleviate their suffering and bring dignity to some of these women, the Trust has opened a destitute home at Guwahati. Aptly named SENEH, meaning 'Selfless Love', the home provides shelter, food, medical care, clothing and all necessities for sustaining a decent dignified life. As of now there are over 20 destitute women who have made SENEH their home. The extent of help that such hapless women require is evident from the fact that in the last few years SENEH has organized cataract operations, provided dentures, hearing aids, and treatments for various ailments including prolonged psychiatric medication.The vision is that in the sunset of their lives, they can once again learn to laugh and sing and live together as a family.