Holding a Menstrual Hygiene Workshop
The purpose of a workshop is simple: to impart information and knowledge. It is the ideal method through which information may be retained and further disseminated. In that short amount of time, intensive educational spaces are created where participation is encouraged and discussions are fostered.
For this very purpose, Project Baala disseminates vital information on menstruation and menstrual health and hygiene management through workshops. Since the topic is itself surrounded by so many taboos and myths, the workshops create a safe space where bonds of trust are created between facilitator and participants, allowing for sharing of personal experiences while destigmatising menstruation and allied topics.
To ensure that the workshops are executed professionally and ensuring that they achieve the goals set, Project Baala trains volunteers to become Baala Bosses. The Baala Bosses receive materials and guidance to help them facilitate the workshops in the best possible way. One such Baala Boss is Sanskriti Gupta, who joined Project Baala as a Fellow and has been associated with the organisation since. Read on for her first hand account of holding workshops!
“Hi, my name is Sanskriti Gupta, a little background about me: currently working as a Gandhi Fellow for Piramal Foundation in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan. I pursued the Baala Fellowship under the Research Vertical during my undergraduate study and have been associated with Project Baala since then.
The Gandhi Fellowship consists of different processes designed to build adept changemakers. Field Support (FS) is one such process where each fellow engages and works with ten villages, therefore, ten communities simultaneously. Another process of significance is the Community Immersion (CI), where a fellow is expected to live in a community for a month to understand the rural milieu of India.
During my FS, while interacting with school-going girls and women in the community and during CI experiencing a shortage of pads and issues around disposing of used sanitary napkins, I brainstormed and came to the solution of distributing reusable sanitary napkins to the school girls and conducting workshops that educate and dispel myths and misinformation around menstruation.
As soon as I thought about taking up a project on menstrual hygiene management, my mind automatically resorted to reaching out to Project Baala for guidance. Initially, I was a little hesitant to talk about menstruation openly. However, after getting the advice to incorporate humor and contextual references to the stakeholders’ daily life, I became confident in conducting the workshop. Project Baala supported me by building my knowledge and skills to facilitate a workshop by incorporating all the essential elements in the workshop design. To be sufficiently prepared, I conducted a couple of mock workshops for my Co-fellows and incorporated their feedback.
Till now, I have successfully conducted workshops in all ten schools for girls in classes 6 to 12. After the workshops, I felt elated as the girls actively engaged in conversations during and post-workshop. Conducting these workshops dispelled my pre-conceived notions about rural communities and their outlook towards menstruation.
Way forward, over the course of the ongoing academic year, as an extension of the project, I have decided to raise funds to distribute the Baala Kits to the girls in these schools and conduct workshops for the women in the community also.”
Since 2017, Project Baala has impacted over 350,000 menstruators. One of the ways through which the impact has been made is through holding such workshops across India and the world.
We are glad to have passionate individuals like Sanskriti as part of the Baala family and look forward to making menstruation a non-issue with the support of many more like minded people like her!
