Tag: MHM knowledge

For a real and sustainable menstrual health – Stop Menstrual Poverty – Stop plastic – MHM2021
What are we asking for? The idea is to bring menstrual health to all menstruating people on this planet, do we agree on that? But we cannot forget about this planet!

Asking for accessible menstrual products and not specifying that they should be reusable and environmentally friendly is to forget that we are part of a whole, it is to stop caring for ourselves and stop caring for the earth. Is that what we want? I swear not.
And I think it is no longer necessary to explain again the huge negative impact tampons and disposable pads have on us, and on the earth.

For those who do not know yet, I have been collaborating with @ngobeartsy for a long time, working in western Nepal offering workshops on menstrual and sexual health and handing out menstrual cups. Those who use it are delighted and despite the fact that access to water is sometimes complex, they manage to fill the bucket that we give them, sterilize the menstrual cup and wash themselves.

Two days ago, Clara, the founder of be artsy, sent me a voice message telling me the news in the area where we work. The schools had decided to start distributing disposable pads to menstruating students! The girls had told Rupa (coordinator of the project in Nepal) that they had started using these pads when they went to school. Rupa asked them worriedly what they do with them once they were used, the answer was to be expected: They left them in the forest, under a stone.

The photo you see is a bathroom in one of the schools where we work, Manisha (team mentor) sent it to us, when we asked to write this post. As you can see, there are no bins where to deposit the used pads, and even if there were, in this area of Nepal there is no waste management. Or it is thrown into the river, or on the forest, or it is buried or burned (in Spain the Disposable pads are also a problem, our waste management is quite lousy).

This reality does not only exist in Nepal, many areas of the planet do not manage their waste. And providing disposable pads as a measure to eradicate menstrual poverty is crazy! And even more so, when there are alternatives, viable, sustainable and that can even generate local work (many NGOs working on menstrual poverty have created workshops to employ women in sewing cloth pads for menstruating people in their localities).

Conclusion? Things can be done well, let’s not do them half badly, it is not necessary.

For real and sustainable menstrual health.
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Text Beatriz San Roman, Translation by Clara Garcia Ortés
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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!
27/05/2021
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