Our sustainable sanitary pack project provides reusable, washable sanitary packs to enable girls to continue their education when they have their period, instead of missing many days off school. This will empower them through education to transform their lives.
UK charity Classrooms in the Clouds (CITC) works with its Nepalese partners to support education by:
- Building good quality, new classrooms
- Sponsoring teachers, supporting teacher training and encouraging the employment of female teachers
- Working in partnership with local Nepalese communities and international partners
Back in 2015 the charity successfully bid to the International President’s Appeal for 2015-17 Educate to Lead Campaign. The bid facilitated the CITC “Inspire Programme” with intensive and focused training for at least 10 CITC sponsored teachers and more than 1,200 girls.
As well as intensive teacher training and mentoring, CITC provided follow up support through two Educational Support Workers working in the classroom alongside CITC teachers in at least 10 schools in the remote northern regions of Nepal. Developing child centred learning approaches using the ‘Train the Trainer’ model, CITC also supported first aid and menstrual health training to benefit women and girls in village schools, and support more approaches to female health and welfare by involving the whole school community.
CITC’s Inspire programme is ongoing and supports gender equality in schools and develops strong female role models through CITC’s female teachers and CITC partners in the school and village communities.
Links with the programme have continued since those early days and in summer 2018 we were asked to provide 25 sanitary kits made by Sewing Bee to be taken to Nepal by a group of Girl Guides from the North West when they went out to Lukla to support the Menstrual Health Training and Awareness run by CITC in the village. Lukla is a small town in the Khumbu Pasanglhamu rural municipality in north-eastern Nepal. Situated at 2,860 metres, it is a popular starting point place for visitors to the Himalayas near Mount Everest.
In Nepal, without sanitary supplies, girls miss days at school each month and are sent away from their families while menstruating. It is critical to enable girls to continue their education when they have their period. Their hard-won education is thus not interrupted each month this empowers them through education to transform their own lives and those of their families.
Our Sewing Bee set itself the target of providing the Guides with 25 kits consisting of 25 bags, 50 shields and 175 liners. We used the Days for Girls pattern to make the kits. We normally have our Sewing Bee once a month but had an extra session to complete these packs in time.
Kits were sent to Merseyside for the Guides to take to Nepal where they were used as part of the CITC Menstrual Health Training and Awareness programme with which the Guides assisted.
The packs we sent will enable 25 girls to continue their education in spite of their periods and will enable them to maintain their dignity. The 25 packs will enable the girls who receive them to attend around 4,500 additional days in school.