Menstrual Hygiene Day 2021

Menstruation is not a dirty word and 28 May is observed as Menstrual Hygiene Day across the globe.

By Sandhya Rai

Every woman experiences a monthly biological cycle known as her period. This year on World Menstrual Hygiene Day we organised a workshop for our Khelo Rugby girls with Simply Sports and Project Baala. The workshop was over zoom and more than 50 of our girls from Bangaluru, Saraswatipur and Kolkata were able to take part.

It’s interesting why World Menstrual Hygiene Day is marked on 28 May: because the average menstrual cycle is 28 days and the menstruation cycle for most women is 5 days, thus 28 May.

Distribution of re-usable sanitary pads in our Khelo Rugby communities

What were some of the important things that we learned from workshop?

The workshop discussed the importance of good hygiene while we are having our period. How it is important we keep ourselves well with a proper diet. That we can experience cramps, back pains and can have mood swings. What the phases of our periods are and why we have periods.

Our periods usually start from between 11 to 14 years of age, this is part of changes in our bodies called puberty. The changes are taking place inside and outside and take place between the age of 8 up to 18 years. This is us growing up and is perfectly normal.

Sometimes before our period we can have PMS which is premenstrual syndrome. The symptoms come around two weeks before the menstrual cycle. They can include back pain, cramps, mood swings, neck pain and headaches. It’s important to follow a good diet at this time including nuts, green leafy vegetables, whole grains and drinking lots of water. 

The workshop was a good source of information and allowed the girls to find out about menstrual hygiene in a nice way. We could ask questions and talk about our periods more openly afterwards.

Some feedback from Khelo girls about the workshop.

Sonam Shaw , Khelo Rugby Young Leader - “After I did this menstrual workshop I got to know more about period. In my community there is many girls who don’t have much information about hygiene during period. Now I know more I will share information with them.”

Anshu Kumari, Khelo Rugby Young Leader - “I am very happy to be included in the workshop session because I have learned many more things from it . I got to know my mistakes that I used to do during my period but now I know what are the right things to do.”

Sushmita Rajbhar, Rugby Player - “Am very happy to get reusable pads from project Baala . Now I don’t need to buy every month pads which was difficult.”

It was really good that we were sent reusable sanitary pads by Project Baala and it was very good for us to be included in their project - thank you!