SPARSH has taken the initiative to Awareness generation of menstrual hygiene, the program also undertakes regular health checkups of women and adolescent girls. Another crucial aspect of the program is ensuring access to menstrual hygiene products.
Adolescent girls and women are trained to stitch cloth pads upon the assembly of disposable pads. Various tie-ups with pad manufacturers are undertaken to ensure timely and regular access to sanitary pads. A unique initiative of the program is conducting couple counseling to sensitize male partners to the various aspects of menstruation.
Awareness Generation and Capacity Building Programme in Context with “Kurma Custom” Kurma (Gaokor) is a ramshackle, doorless hut situated on the outskirts of a tribal village. It is a place away from the main village where, as per custom, menstruating girls/women must stay with just minimum provisioning of a tattered mat and blanket during their menstruation period.
During this period, they were not allowed to enter the village and were treated as untouchable by everyone in the village, including their entire family. SPARSH took many initiatives to generate awareness in girls and women on menstrual health and started to create an atmosphere in tribal-dominated villages in favor of eradicating this fatal, shameful, and unscientific custom.
This year, we had SPARSH – ANNUAL REPORT 2019-2020 organized 08 awareness programs, i.e., Nurchuli, Vihirgaon, Kukdi, Mahavada, Pipartola, Navegaon, Mohozari, and Bethesda. These are all tribal-dominated population villages. 293 women benefited from this awareness generation and capacity-building program.
SPARSH strongly believes that the “existence of Kurmaghar is the main obstacle in the process of eradicating the Kurma custom.”We had taken a drive to repair Kurmaghar because we learned in these seven years of continued effort on the Kurma issue that without entering Kurmaghar, the custom of Kurma cannot stop. The hundreds-year-old traditional custom can not change only through awareness and workshops. In only the first rain, the Kurmaghar was dripping heavily.
In order to improve the living conditions of tribal women during their stay, we initiated the repairing work of Kurmaghar with their involvement. Here, we want to mention that we never construct. SPARSH – ANNUAL REPORT 2019-2020 or re-construct Kurmaghar but the repairing for safe shelter.
Goonj, New Delhi, provides material help to us for this cause. To further motivate, we also distributed some utensils, books, and sanitary napkins to women of the tribal community who contributed their labor in this repair work.