In Period pain isn't just cramps. It’s a crisis when your zip code decides if you bleed with dignity.
In Bangladesh, every three in four women and girls face barriers to accessing menstrual hygiene products. To many from lower economic backgrounds, period isn't pink; period is misery. They don't have access to sanitary pads or menstrual education. A vast number of people in my country who don't have enough knowledge and suffer from many issues.
Frequent floods, salinity in the coastal region, and the pain they endure lead many to consume birth control pills. The misuse of contraceptive pills causes complex issues like thyroid problems, hormonal imbalance, skin issues, chronic diseases, and even cervical cancer. They resort to such measures just to stop bleeding, which depicts the lack of awareness and menstrual education.
The concentration of heavy metals causes some serious health issues to the young girls as well. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (2018), 61% of rural households and 27% of urban households lack improved sanitation facilities, making it difficult for people to manage menstruation hygienically. 91% of women from low-income communities continue to use cloth due to cost concerns.
Therefore, we’re working on Project Nirmol, where will host workshops in community schools and conduct health sessions in rural regions. We need to contact rural schools and conduct online seminar sessions where people can communicate directly with health specialists. This can help us understand what's going on and who needs what. Hygiene Apa, a youth led project in rural and suburban regions, will educate and mentor school teachers to run community based campaigns creating grassroots impact. Awareness is the key.
Since not everyone has a smartphone, this project caters to SDG 3 (Good Health), SDG 6 (ensuring clean water and sanitation for all) and SDG 4 (Education for all) and by directly engaging with the primary and high school students and the community mothers. Flashcards on sanitation and menstrual education make it more compelling and easy for mothers to understand visually. By contacting the school authorities, we can distribute these flashcards and they can teach them in their classrooms.With these flashcards, teachers can teach students how to sanitize properly, handle contaminated water, and learn about menstrual hygiene visually. They can bring these flashcards home, basically becoming health advocates for their own community. And by distributing sanitary pads, we can ensure awareness, so that they know something called "sanitary pads" exists other than normal clothes, which cause cancer.
For Project Nirmol, the measurable goals are designed to track tangible impact on both students and community members. We aim to distribute 100 sanitary pads per school visit, ensuring that women and girls in participating communities have access to proper menstrual hygiene products. Flashcards on sanitation and menstrual education will be distributed to 40 students per pilot school, with at least 80% of students demonstrating understanding of key concepts through short quizzes or interactive activities.
Teachers will be trained to use these flashcards effectively, with 10 teachers per school completing the training and conducting at least two classroom sessions per month. We plan to host three health sessions targeting 25 community mothers per session, recording attendance and collecting feedback to measure awareness and engagement. Additionally, we will monitor households for the adoption of proper sanitation practices, such as handwashing, pad drying, and clean water usage, using follow-up surveys and visits to ensure the interventions are creating lasting change.
We believe compassionate action is all it takes. And with our project Nirmol, we hope to empower communities to become health advocates for themselves.