Tag: MenstruationMatters

We evaluate the impact of the Rato Baltin project in 2022
We have updated our Transparency page on our website to share the results with donors, associates, and partners.
As you know, our project fights against chhaupadi and promotes reproductive health, menstrual hygiene, and education in areas of Nepal where extreme taboos affecting girls and women persist.

According to the evaluation, the project achieved significant results last year, and we directly benefited over 19,000 individuals through workshops on menstrual health, sexual education, and the distribution of menstrual kits and cups. We have also undertaken other initiatives to increase the visibility of the project.

The objectives of the Rato Baltin project are to educate about reproductive health, menstrual management, and sexual education. On top of that, we introduced the use of menstrual cups in different social spheres, and reduce the school absenteeism of girls in selected remote communities in western Nepal.

We also focus on ensuring menstrual dignity and long-term program sustainability.

Throughout 2022, various activities were carried out to achieve these objectives.

We provided menstrual health and sexual education training for boys and girls, focused on the use of menstrual cups in schools and for women under forty, with a 97.5% acceptance rate.

We provided training on menopause for women’s groups in villages and conducted awareness sessions on hygiene and protection against Covid-19.

Furthermore, we, as well, collected data from menstrual cup users and carried out other actions such as training on sunflower and banana cultivation, as well as soap and incense production. You can read the evaluation.

The results obtained drive the Rato Baltin project towards its goals, ensuring menstrual health and dignity for women in Nepal. Thanks to associates, partners and donors!!

You can be part of our projects, if you want!
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By Clara Garcia i Ortés
Photos by ©be artsy
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We need your help, please

-Donorbox – Choose your own currency!

Rato Baltin: https://donorbox.org/against-chhaupadi

If you want to contribute (only Spain) via Bizum:

01177. But please email us to info@beartsy.org con with your details, to deduct it in your Income Tax!
If you prefer to contribute by regular bank transfer (but again email us with your details for the deduction!):
be artsy Association: Banco Sabadell – IBAN: ES23 0081 0900 8200 0430 1934 – BIC: BSABESBB

-Associate:

https://beartsy.org/associate/

-Donate:

https://beartsy.org/donate/

-Teaming – 1 euro/month:

RatoBaltin: https://www.teaming.net/ratobaltinproject

Thanks!
25/05/2023
We have the be artsy Activity Report 2020!
It will be of interest to you. And it will be surprising. We have started working on the project Rato Baltin 2021 and other projects this year, and finally we closed the activity report that we carried out in 2020, the year in which the main risk was the Covid-19 pandemic worldwide and in Far West Nepal. This has made travelling impossible (for international volunteers and local partners in Kathmandu).

Because of the lockdown measures, schools were closed from March to mid-November. During the first week of December the schools closed again. Due to the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and current public health restrictions, it has been impossible for local partners to monitor the project on the spot; we had to let the girls and the local government do it. We managed that 2 of our coordinators and 1 trainer helped with the monitoring, but we had to believe that the local NGO would do the work according to our vision, expectations, methodology and values.

The project could only be implemented with the authorization and coordination of the local government. The risk was that local government employees would not follow the correct guidelines during the implementation of the project. Obtaining stable funds for our projects is the greatest difficulty we face. The project is working very well, but it is not cheap.

In 2021, we will do the project Rato Baltin + Masks 4 health before reaching each town, to protect our trainers and mentors and the locals who come to our workshops. We are trying to get a donation of menstrual cups to provide all the women who want to use them. Besides, in collaboration with Dr. Yap from the WTO (World Toilet Organization) we will open a social enterprise in Achham, Nepal, to try to help women earn money. We are now carrying out a study on the natural materials that we can find, what projects can be included in the initiative. But surely it will be along the lines of sanitary napkins, masks, candles, soap … The initiative is aimed to help widows, young women who could not finish their studies and low caste women to have a regular income that gives dignity to their lives.

During 2020, we hired a project manager, two coordinators, three trainers and six mentors in Achham. As staff of the project Rato Baltin, they earn a salary that makes them more financially independent. This experience will make them leaders in their community and will allow them to develop new skills that they can use in the future. In the emergency project we also hired several women to make masks.

We finished the year 2020 with 61 partners, but we need more! Have a look at the Activity Report 2020, you will surely find it interesting.

Join us!
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Translation by Sari Manota
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We need your help, please.

-Associate: – https://beartsy.org/associate /

–2021 crowdfunding: https://www.migranodearena.org/en/cause/fighting-chhaupadi-the-taboo-that-is-leading-to-the-deaths-of-young-girls-

-Teaming – 1 euro/month:

RatoBaltin: https://www.teaming.net/ratobaltinproject
Edufem to prevent early marriage: https://www.teaming.net/edufemproject

-Donorbox – Choose your own currency!

RatoBaltin: https://donorbox.org/againts-chhaupadi

Edufem to prevent early marriage: https://donorbox.org/edufem

Thanks!
12/04/2021
Impact of the 2020 project: we have keep on working despite the Covid-19

The challenges we faced while implementing the project in 2020 were due to the Covid-19, but despite the constraints, our local trainers have shown their motivation and willingness to keep working to bring changes in their community.

You can read the details of the evaluation of the 2020 Rato Baltin Project, the focus, the results, the budget evaluation, the data sources and the methodology in this document.

This year 2020 we have managed to maintain the presence of our team in the fields despite the sanitary measures due to Covid-19. Thanks to the goodwill of the trainers, the follow-up of the project went well, and we were able to implement some workshops. We have seen the need to design a workshop component aimed at boys, too, in order to holistically disseminate MHM knowledge and sex education.

We will pursue the implementation of a group workshop for school boys to be delivered in 2021. In every village, we also plan to organize talks with representatives of the municipalities as well as spiritual and religious leaders. Next year, the project is not going to be expanded to a lot of other villages. Instead, we will focus on having people working in the field during the whole year. We will try to reach more women and help them to stop Chhaupadi by assisting and encouraging them with the help of the mentors and training visits.

Our plan is to have a staff made up entirely of Achham girls. We will employ at least 2 girls from each village to work as social mobilizers and assist the trainer once per month throughout the whole year. We have been working to establish a strong mentor team in Achham, that can help in the future years of the project. This year we have been working with the new social enterprise Be Artsy Nepal as a counterpart, and because they were already working in 2019 as individual volunteers in the project, so things run smoothly and easily. They could get approval with SWC and implement the local girls in Achham, and we can trust that they will work with us in the long run.

In addition to that, we will continue to have Achham girls conduct the workshops on the field, and they will become team managers in the future. By means of these measures, the project can be managed more efficiently, and we will be able to count on the trainers in each municipality, who will take care of their menstrual cup users and foster Chhaupadi awareness year-round.

We need your help, please.

-Associate: – https://beartsy.org/associate /

–Migranodearena: https://www.migranodearena.org/en/cause/fighting-chhaupadi-the-taboo-that-is-leading-to-the-deaths-of-young-girls-

-Teaming (1 euro/month):

RatoBaltin: https://www.teaming.net/ratobaltinproject
Edufem to prevent early marriage: https://www.teaming.net/edufemproject

-Donorbox:
https://donorbox.org/againts-chhaupadi
https://donorbox.org/edufem

Thanks!

09/04/2021
We are already working in the 2021 project
2020 has been like a parenthesis, but work hasn’t stopped! If we look back to the last twenty years, Nepal has ratified the Beijing Platform for Action, and the Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. The Nepalese women literacy rate has passed from the 25% in 1991 to the 57% in 2011; the maternal and infant mortality ratio decreased from 539 maternal deaths for each 100,000 live births to 170 in the same period. And the life expectancy for the women has increased from 55.5 years to 70. These statistics show the political will to improve gender equality and the quality of life for women in the country. The be artsy projects address education at a local level, against inequality towards women causing the Chhaupadi, which still prevails. And which aggravates it.

We are working since 2017 in the Rato Baltin (Red Bucket) project, and more recently, in other parallel projects, but interrelated: Edufem, and activities against the effects of the pandemic. We have associated ourselves with local NGOs, in the remote communities in West Nepal. We have seen the need for the project, to bring it to more municipalities of Achham. The results in Achham are just the beginning, we want to reach as many villages as possible. You can see the details of the 2021 Project in this link (pdf).

Through the creation and implementation of partnerships and workshop trainings, be artsy will pursue the project objectives via:

● Partnering with a socially conscious menstrual cup supplier to donate menstrual cups to the beneficiaries
● Partnering with ROKPA International
● Associating with a Nepali social enterprise with women committed to the project – Be Artsy Nepal
● Providing girls, schooling or out of school, with menstrual cups, hygiene kits, and adequate training in their use and upkeep.
● Hiring and training local trainers and mentors, to work with communities through workshops and maintain ongoing follow-ups and work as social mobilizers monthly.
● Conducting workshop trainings in sex education and menstrual health for girls, women, and boys, with special emphasis on respect, dignity and self-knowledge.
● Using participative photography to engage girls and communities in the topic of menstruation and what can be improved for better health and self-care during their period.

In 2021, we will keep on working also in our own environment, and in international forums. With the World Toilet Organization, we have agreed in working to create a social enterprise and to establish a training centre in Achham. This will help women and girls who do not attend school to earn money, and, at the same time, could help to make the project more sustainable. That’s our Happy Women Project.

In summary, we want to go back to all those villages where we have already been educating in sex and menstruation, for the girls who did not receive our training with the workshops. There are also plans for a sexual education group, only boys. And getting to 3 new villages and schools, one in each municipality where we work, making a total of 17 villages where we will carry out our Rato Baltin Project in 2021.
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Translation by Tere Salinero
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We need your help, please.

-Associate: – https://beartsy.org/associate /

–Migranodearena: https://www.migranodearena.org/en/cause/fighting-chhaupadi-the-taboo-that-is-leading-to-the-deaths-of-young-girls-

-Teaming (1 euro/month):

RatoBaltin: https://www.teaming.net/ratobaltinproject
Edufem to prevent early marriage: https://www.teaming.net/edufemproject

-Donorbox:
https://donorbox.org/againts-chhaupadi
https://donorbox.org/edufem

Thanks!
25/02/2021
Plan Himalaya does not only care for creating unique travel experiences…
For John Ruskin, “mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural landscapes”. And that’s how Plan Himalaya understands it, a local agency in Nepal characterized by creating customized travel experiences: adventure, trekking, sports, circuits and routes in motorcycle, bicycle, or even paragliding!, itineraries all surrounded by the wonderful natural landscape of Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan and Sikkim.

But, Plan Himalaya does not only care for creating unique travel experiences in the Kathmandu valley or at the foot of Mount Everest, but also does collaborate with our Rato Baltin – Red Bucket project, thanks to each of the trips their clients may want to enjoy with them.

Thanks so much, Plan Himalaya! Many thanks for collaborating with our project!
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Text by Luisa Tejada, translation by Tere Salinero
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We need your help, please.

Associate: – https://beartsy.org/associate /

Migranodearena – crowdfunding: https://www.migranodearena.org/en/cause/fighting-chhaupadi-the-taboo-that-is-leading-to-the-deaths-of-young-girls-

Teaming (1 euro/month)

RatoBaltin: https://www.teaming.net/ratobaltinproject

Edufem to prevent early marriage: https://www.teaming.net/edufemproject

Donorbox:
– https://donorbox.org/againts-chhaupadi
– https://donorbox.org/edufem

Thanks!
01/02/2021
Word of thanks to On Coach Communication
When we think about a coach, the first thing that comes to mind is that of a sports coach who will help us change our attitude in order to achieve our personal goals; of course, through discipline and effort, values that elite athletes know very well.

And, from this passion for coaching and sports, is how ON COACH COMMUNICATION was born: a firm that can transfer sports values to the executive, corporate and administrative field, and what is more, under the guidance of Albert Barceló Casals and his sports team, all exceptional athletes of proven professional trajectory, who give masterclasses and motivational seminars to companies, sports organizations, mountaineering clubs, educational centres and other associations.

On top of that, ON Coach Communication shares its passion for coaching and sports with values such as solidarity and social commitment, via communication campaigns, documentary films, videos or publications. And it is precisely thanks to this commitment that ON Coach Communication has prepared a documentary on our Rato Baltin (Red Bucket) Project, where they inform about our aim, our work, and the reality we face at be artsy. A splendid documentary that will be released worldwide, in three languages, on the 28th of November (Fair Saturday), in streaming: https://app.fairsaturday.org

Many thanks, ON COACH COMMUNICATION, for collaborating with be artsy!
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By Luisa Tejada, Translation by Tere Salinero
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We need your help, please. Make your donation to the Rato Baltin and Edufem projects today.

Crowdfunding: https://www.migranodearena.org/reto/21328/contra-el-chhaupadi-la-tradicion-nepali-que-exilia-a-las-mujeres-durante-la-menstruacion

Teaming (1 euro/month)

RatoBaltin: https://www.teaming.net/ratobaltinproject

Edufem to prevent early marriage: https://www.teaming.net/edufemproject

Associate: – https://beartsy.org/associate /

Donorbox: –https://donorbox.org/againts-chhaupadi – https://donorbox.org/edufem – Covid-19🦠 https://donorbox.org/mask-4-health-nepal Thanks!
22/11/2020
Actions on sanitation, hygiene and health

The 20th World Virtual Toilet Summit (WTS) has invited be artsy to participate. This was done by Clara Garcia i Ortés, founder and director of the Rato Baltin project, on 19 November.

Project ECHO and the World Toilet Organization organized the Summit with the aim to promote awareness, build political commitment and trigger action on critical water, sanitation, hygiene and health issues at all levels, to facilitate the efficient conservation, protection, development, planning, management and use of wash in all its dimensions on an environmentally sustainable basis for the benefit of the Earth. Clara Garcia participated as a panellist in the session on ‘Menstrual hygiene’.

The WTS explains that ‘meeting the hygiene needs of all women is a fundamental issue of basic public health, basic dignity, self-esteem, and human rights. Period poverty simply means a lack of access to safe sanitary products, menstrual hygiene education, toilets, handwashing facilities and the proper waste management. More than 800 million people menstruate daily. Yet, more than 1.2 billion women lack the access to basic sanitation and hygiene care. The World Health Organization in the United Nations has recognized menstrual hygiene as a global public health and human-rights issue. Women and young girls in many developing countries are discouraged from socializing, going to school or doing certain basic activities when they menstruate. The cultural shame often attached to menstruation and a shortage of resources such as clean toilet with basic sanitary care or sanitary products stop the young girls from going to school and women from working when they menstruate. Many girls and women cannot afford menstrual products on top of lacking the use of the essential sanitation facilities make them harder to manage their monthly affair safely with dignity. These women are often torn between purchasing food and necessities, and sanitary products are not in the list. Many girls and women in developing countries still use old clothing, leaves, ash, cow dung etc. unsafe materials to absorb according to research conducted by UNICEF.

Be artsy often finds these important shortcomings in Nepal, in the Achham area, where we work with projects that give access to hygiene and menstrual education for girls and women. Clara’s participation in the Summit made this clear, and the way we do it.

We need your help, please. Make your donation to the Rato Baltin and Edufem projects today.

Crowdfunding: https://www.migranodearena.org/reto/21328/contra-el-chhaupadi-la-tradicion-nepali-que-exilia-a-las-mujeres-durante-la-menstruacion

Teaming (1 euro/month)

RatoBaltin: https://www.teaming.net/ratobaltinproject

Edufem to prevent early marriage: https://www.teaming.net/edufemproject

Associate: – https://beartsy.org/associate /

Donorbox: –https://donorbox.org/againts-chhaupadi – https://donorbox.org/edufem – Covid-19🦠 https://donorbox.org/mask-4-health-nepal

Thanks!

21/11/2020
United Nations: ‘All this needs to change… now’
Chhaupadi: a particular form of hard violence against women. International Day to eliminate violence against women: panel discussion online and presentation with international guests who speak about women and menstruation in Nepal, entry by contributing €5 to the project.

In the United Nations message for the International Day to eliminate violence against women, the General Secretary António Guterres, denounces the “sexual type abuse and because of being a female, violence, rape, one of the most horrible, persistent and generalized human rights violation, affecting one in every three women in the world. “The violence against women and girls is rooted in centuries of male domination. Let us not forget that the gender inequalities that fuel violence culture are essentially a question of power imbalances”. “The stigma, erroneous ideas, the lack of information and the non fulfilment of the laws, only perpetuate impunity”.

The be artsy project has covered, by explaining about it, a lesser known form of violence against women, the Chhaupadi. Not only: we work since 2017 in an educative program that has showed its effectiveness in eradicating this practice in Nepal, based in workshops, awareness activities, participative photography, and empowerment for girls. To very much summarize what is our main project, the Rato Baltin Project, which we accompany by other interrelated parallel projects, in November, the month of the International Day to eliminate violence against women, we denounce all forms of violence, amongst them this terrible practice of extreme discrimination towards women just because they are female. We denounce, and work in situ in Nepal to eradicate this practice. Your support helps us to be effective in fighting against these forms of cultural, physical and daily violence.

Be artsy organizes, next Saturday the 7th of November, at 15h (UTC), an online discussion panel and exhibition, with international guests that shall speak about women and menstruation in Nepal, with entry by contributing €5 to the project: https://donorbox.org/charity-event

In November, be artsy proposes more activities within the frame of the International Day to eliminate violence against women. On the 28th, a documentary will be released and be artsy will offer an exhibition online that can be followed in three languages, and on the 19th Clara Garcia i Ortés, co-founder and president of the association, will participate via a discussion panel, on one of the 10 subjects treated at the World Toilet Summit, about hygiene personal spaces: that about menstrual hygiene management. 2,300 million people do not have access to a bathroom offering good sanitary conditions and personal dignity, according to the United Nations.
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Translation by Tere Salinero
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We need your help, please. Make your donation to the Rato Baltin and Edufem projects today.

Crowdfunding: https://www.migranodearena.org/reto/21328/contra-el-chhaupadi-la-tradicion-nepali-que-exilia-a-las-mujeres-durante-la-menstruacion

Teaming (1 euro/month)

RatoBaltin: https://www.teaming.net/ratobaltinproject

Edufem to prevent early marriage: https://www.teaming.net/edufemproject

Associate: – https://beartsy.org/associate /

Donorbox: –https://donorbox.org/againts-chhaupadi – https://donorbox.org/edufem – Covid-19 https://donorbox.org/mask-4-health-nepal Thanks!
01/11/2020
The Afrodita Circle also endeavour to help women in other countries. Thanks!
Now, more than ever, the empowerment of women is an impending issue. António Guterres, UN Secretary General, stated “that this becomes an international priority to achieve global peace and a higher protection of the human rights all over the world”. However, to reach this it is first necessary to rediscover and strengthen that individual female empowerment to help us in the process of self-acknowledgement, liberation, re-education and change.

Mila Torró, founder of Afrodita Circle, has been accompanying women for more than 12 years in their search for balance, well-being and personal reconciliation. She has pursued this through individual sessions or with courses, workshops and therapies that, using energetic techniques, music, movement and body awareness, to encourage women’s liberation and empowerment. Afrodita Circle also endeavour to help women who wish for that liberation in other countries, collaborating with be artsy for many years now sharing parts of its funds from courses and workshops to our organization.

Mila Torró, thank you very much, for being a guide for many women and for supporting our cause.

Thank you!
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By Luisa Tejada, translation by Tere Salinero,
correction by Jeanne Wills. Photos by Serena Aiko
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We need your help, please. Make your donation to the Rato Baltin and Edufem projects today.

Crowdfunding: https://www.migranodearena.org/reto/21328/contra-el-chhaupadi-la-tradicion-nepali-que-exilia-a-las-mujeres-durante-la-menstruacion

Teaming (1 euro/month) RatoBaltin: https://www.teaming.net/ratobaltinproject Edufem to prevent early marriage: https://www.teaming.net/edufemproject

Associate: – https://beartsy.org/associate

Donorbox: –https://donorbox.org/againts-chhaupadi –https://donorbox.org/edufem Covid19🦠 https://donorbox.org/mask-4-health-nepal Thanks!
25/09/2020
Meet Hiunkala
In a town called Toshi, located in the Sudurpaschim province of Nepal (far-west) we meet Hiunkala Chalaune. Hiunkala lives with her father, mother, brother and sister and has been working as a trainer in the Rato Baltin project for more than a year.

Before participating in the project, Hiunkala felt that she used to wish for things that would never come true and had the feeling that she did not understand many things. Her maturity began with her first period. She wondered what menstruation was and asked her mother why they couldn’t stay inside the house during menstruation. Her mother replied that it was the tradition that they followed since the day of their ancestors and could not be changed. Hiunkala suffered a lot every time she had to comply with the tradition, and she wondered if she could change people’s minds. At the time, she was not feeling very strong emotionally, and speaking in public or participating in a discussion was very uncomfortable for her.

This all changed when she joined the project. Hiunkala is more secure now and shares her knowledge about the work they do, and other issues with her parents and in front of any person or group of people regardless of their hierarchical position in society without losing confidence in herself. One of the challenges she had to overcome by January 2019 was to give talks in schools and to politicians, and register everything. Her work was impeccable.

When Clara (CEO of be artsy) met her in September 2018, she thought it would be very difficult to help her overcome her shyness, but in less than a year her shyness disappeared and now she is undoubtedly one of the best trainers.
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By Carmen Alcañiz. Corrections by Sophie Watson,
photos by Eleonora Bordogni and Clara GO.
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We need your help, please. Make your donation to the Rato Baltin and Edufem projects today.

Crowdfunding: https://www.migranodearena.org/reto/21328/contra-el-chhaupadi-la-tradicion-nepali-que-exilia-a-las-mujeres-durante-la-menstruacion

Teaming (1 euro/month)
RatoBaltin: https://www.teaming.net/ratobaltinproject
Edufem to prevent early marriage: https://www.teaming.net/edufemproject

Associate: – https://beartsy.org/associate

Donorbox:
–https://donorbox.org/againts-chhaupadi
–https://donorbox.org/edufem
Covid19🦠 https://donorbox.org/mask-4-health-nepal

Thank you!
23/09/2020

Thank you to WPML for supporting NGOs