On the occasion of World Menstrual Hygiene Day 2022, Light to Life in collaboration with Green ink, Creative Alliance for Youth Advancement (CAYA), and Youth Action For Social Development-YASD organized an event at the EMK center to educate the underprivileged adolescent girls of slums about menstruation hygiene.
The aim of this event was to shine a spotlight on menstruation helps to fight the taboo and prohibitions. This year, the theme for World Menstrual Hygiene Day is ‘making menstruation a normal fact of life by 2030’.
This event is a part online platform School of (im)possible, where teachers will teach different art techniques, connecting climate change and SRHR. Focusing on behavioral change efforts and awareness on SRHR issues within climate change, the initiative will promote inclusive SRHR and climate education through play-based learning and participatory experience.
It will reach adolescents and youths aged between 13 to 30 years in the coastal belts of Bangladesh. Around 50 people attended this event to celebrate World Menstrual Hygiene Day 2022, among them 25 girls were from different slum areas of Dhaka. These young girls participated in quizzes, shared their thoughts and experience where team Light to Life kept a close eye on the talented youths.
“I used to think I’m impure also I didn’t know how to maintain hygiene or manage period, as it is considered as taboo no one really wanted to answer the questions I had, now I have a clear idea about this topic after attending this event”- said a 16 years old at the event.
An online quiz event was also launched to teach menstrual hygiene to everyone. On Thursday 27 May, the event came to a close with the announcement of the three winning participants. A prize giving session was also held for both the online and slum participants.In the next session, the organizer team arranged a panel discussion – where they talked about myths and taboos related to menstrual hygiene.
A few volunteers also shared their personal experience in order to raise awareness and break the taboo. Arun Theatre, an organization which works with underprivileged communities, collaborated in this event and performed a stage play named ‘Poriborton” to raise awareness on the topic. On this Menstrual Health Day event, Prime Bank Eye Hospital also provided free Artificial tears for the participants.
