ecofemme.org

** Auromira Developers, a construction company in Auroville, takes non-recyclable, non-biodegradable waste styrofoam from the Eco-Service and villages around Auroville and mixes it with cement, up-cycling it to create light, strong, insulating bricks that can be used for building houses and other structures, whilst at the same time keeping harmful styrofoam out of landfill. The internationally-renowned Upcycling Studio’s philosophy of only designing and creating with waste has seen it demonstrate Auroville’s amazing creativity at numerous exhibitions and recently it partnered with a global upcycling youth education project, supported by the European Commission and other international partners around the world, to seek to develop new and creative ways to upcycle waste into value. If we assume that single cloth bag could replace 6 one-time use plastic bags a week, that would come out to 24 bags a month, 288 bags a year, 22,186 bags in an average life time! Stop using one-time use plastics – no more plastic bottles, no more plastic bags, no more drinking straws, no more plastic cutlery and so on.

As part of our ‘We need YOU’ campaign, Eco Femme Pad for Pad facilitator and trainer Nikethana, shares her reflections on giving menstrual health education sessions to girls and women around India. We focus the discussions/activities through exercises that bring the concept of menstruation back to the girls’ own body – for example, in asking them to locate and feel their own uterus, in vocalising loudly and proudly all the parts of the female reproductive system in their own language, in having discussions around first period experiences, in exploring how they recognise the onset of their periods (through changes in their body and emotions) and connecting all this to the menstrual cycle and also wider cycles in nature. In the Pad for Pad education programme, a key exercise with the girls involves helping them learn how to mark the dates on the calendar, to calculate the length of their cycle and then predict their potential ovulation and menstruation dates – of course emphasizing that this is a rough prediction and discussing how the cycle can change. (1) Chris Bobel, author of the recently released book ‘The Managed Body:Developing Girls and Menstrual Health in the Global South’ 2018 critiquing the growing social movement to support menstruating girls in the Global South.

We are posting regarding our Pad for Pad programme, which you may already be aware of. Pad for Pad: Passing on the power of informed choice

Awareness-raising about the issue of menstruation in India and how it affects women’s lives is a discussion well worth having. As I mentioned, there has been tremendous media attention on the sanitary “crisis” of girls and women in rural India, and to some extent the film jumped on this bandwagon, particularly by misrepresenting data. According to the National Family Health Survey taken in India in 2015-16, 57.6% women (15 – 24y/o) use hygienic menstrual absorbents during their period, with 45% of women and girls using commercial pads. The film suggests that these pad-making machines are a solution – both by providing a viable livelihood for women and also tackling the taboo of menstruation.