Solutions Panorama

Advocating for
Improved Sanitation
and Hygiene in Schools
Featuring:
WASH in Schools; The Water
Supply and Sanitation
Collaborative Council; WASH
United; Quicksand
Where:
India
Time Frame:
2012
SUMMARY
In recent years, WASH in Schools, a global partnership focused on WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene), has been advocating for schools
to provide safe and drinkable water, improved sanitation facilities, and hygiene education to create healthy habits for a lifetime. In 2012,
the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) added menstrual hygiene management to the Nirmal Bharat Yatra, a
carnival organized by WASH United and Quicksand that took place across five states in India. The Yatra had three important messages –
end open defecation; wash hands with soap and water; and manage menstruation with pride, safety, and dignity.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
WSSCC conceptualized, designed, managed, and delivered
the menstrual hygiene management component, reaching
over 12,000 girls and women at the Yatra grounds and over a
thousand students and teachers in schools in the Yatra districts.
Each stop of the Yatra started with two days of teacher training
and school visits where discussion groups were held with girls
and teachers, both male and female.
The menstural hygiene management (MHM) team at Yatra
worked in and around the MHM Lab, taking hundreds of girls
and women through a systematic loop of activities, starting
with small group discussions with visual aids and gathering
preliminary data through questionnaires, to better understand
beliefs and practices. The intervention also included discussion
and an opportunity to educate all participants in better hygiene
and menstrual management. This was followed by a training
session on how to make low-cost, hygienic, reusable pads and
how to dispose of them.
The MHM Lab aimed to break the silence and taboos around
menstruation and transform menstruation into a matter of pride,
helping girls and women to stop suffering in silence. By enabling
safe and hygienic menstrual hygiene management, as well as
safe reuse and/or disposal of menstrual hygiene products, the
Lab allowed girls and women to regain control of a basic but
fundamental part of their wellbeing. Creating a welcoming, yet
efficient, workshop venue where large numbers of participants
can be meaningfully engaged within a short timeframe was a
necessity. It was also important to be imaginative and to create
a stimulating training session within a holistic, highly visual, and
interactive space for sharing and learning. Each Lab ran for a
minimum of three hours and was divided into three sections:
• Breaking the silence: fostering the understanding that
menstruation is a fact of life and a biological attribute that
of which girls and women should be proud. Girls are given
support to talk about this biological phenomenon in an
informed and positive manner to prepare them emotionally
and physically for the onset of menstruation.
• Managing menstruation hygienically and safely: ensuring
adequate water, cleansing and washing materials, and
private spaces for managing menstrual flows hygienically,
privately, and with dignity.
• Safe reuse and disposal solutions: ensuring mechanisms
for safe collection and disposal of menstrual waste in an
environmentally safe manner.
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WOMEN DELIVER 2016 CONFERENCE: SOLUTIONS PANORAMA