Strength TogetHER 8- Session 4

2nd October 2021.

Strength TogetHER is a virtual program facilitated by 'LOKOPAKAR', a youth organization that has achieved to provide a space and platform for individuals (especially girls and young women) to share their views, opinions, perspectives, experiences, their issues and find solutions to them.

The fourth session of Cohort8 was conducted on the topic "Festival ft.Period "with the active participation of girls which took place via zoom at 4:00 pm. Our moderator was Simran Khatri. She has been working in the field of development as a Development Studies student, intending to raise awareness. She is a member of Hattihatti, Global Peace Women. She is currently employed as a freelance writer. 

Based on our topic, we discussed periods, about the smallest of the smallest things that make our period's time harder. With no delay in  the sequel, we heard the experiences that our participants had to share :

• Our first speaker told us that she is usually free during her periods, there are no taboos and restriction in her home she and her fupu also doesn’t follow these taboos. She used to feel guilty while visiting temples during her periods. As she has been attending so many sessions on the topic periods, she got to know so much knowledge about periods as she has stopped feeling guilty about visiting the temples, celebrating the festivals. This time she going to her hometown ‘ACHHAM’ to celebrate Dashin.Her period's dates are on Dashain. As we know, Achham has very strict restrictions on periods. she has planned not to tell anyone about her periods and will be celebrating the festival.

•  Our second speaker shared with us she has been celebrating Dashain even during her periods without any restriction. As she always went to her village to celebrate Dashain, she never told her grandma about periods and hasn't been celebrating it for the past two years. She even added we have a myth that we shouldn’t touch goodness, shouldn’t enter puja room but she has been doing all these and there is no anything as ‘Paap lagcha’.She feels proud that her parents support her to celebrate and do anything during her periods.

•  Our third speaker shared She was in 7 class when she got her first period. She told her mom about her periods she was so happy to know about her first periods, her mom shared that news to her aunt, grandmom. Later he grandmom told her that she shouldn't, touch anything which makes her feel so bad and even she fought with them. Last year she got her periods during Dashain, her grandmother told her ” she will put her tika without prasad’ which made her angry and she told her if she wants to put her tika then put her with prasad and stuff otherwise don’t put.

•  Our fourth speaker shared her story. One of her close relatives has had her Mehendi Ceremony the other day. She was on the 4th day of my period and was quite confused on whether or not She will be allowed to go. She then asked my parents and they said She couldn't go. After a few days, they told her that she is allowed to go but what She couldn't do was to go to the groom's house which should have been my original objective. Later on, while the event was continuing everyone was asking her about her periods and how many days it was. I was embarrassed and felt awkward because that's was her personal thing and a biological cycle as well. It resulted in attracting more unwanted attention for me due to which She couldn't even properly enjoy the event. 

• .Our fifth speaker shares that she got her first period in Mamaghar she got restriction not to touch the water and all but she didn't have to go through the appalling Chauppadi system that some hapless women face and her family was apparently open-minded people. But one day when she talked about periods in front of her own brother she was silenced by her mother and she was told it wasn't ok to talk about periods with everyone. Ironically, that lead her to understand that even her own family wasn't aware of the need of breaking the stigma against the period. She was from Rotaract and she planned and ran several programs about the same issue. It helped her to broaden her knowledge about the period and how society views and the problems linked with it. The same her who didn't celebrate Dashain a few years ago due to her periods now have understood enough to not repeat it again and to enjoy the festival to the fullest regardless of her periods now.

• Our sixth speaker told us that she hasn’t been celebrated Dashin because of her periods. As she belongs to the typical  Newar Community, she couldn’t celebrate many festivals, couldn’t attend jatras during her periods. It always made her feel bad as she loves to do works during the festivals. Her family, society has taught her not to go temple, not to touch plants during her periods despite her family hadn’t made such restriction like not letting her enter the kitchen and all but it makes her uncomfortable while entering the temple and still she doesn’t go temple. She suffers a lot from periods cramps because of which she couldn’t hide her periods too.

Our moderator expressed what she felt hearing of their stories and there wasn't a single second when we felt like disagreeing with her subtle and meaningful words. In consummation, our mutual thoughts on periods and festivals were discussed. Some of them are listed below;

• Home and school should be the primary owners of information about menstruation education.
• The society we live in is slowly changing and the strict period's boundaries are slowly loosening as we move ahead of time.
• We're in this together to teach the younger ones about the misbelief of periods and educate them about menstrual hygiene. We should try to change the perception of our parents on periods topic.
• There is no wrong going to temples, celebrating festivals during periods until and unless it makes us feel uncomfortable.
• We shouldn’t feel shame to ask pad to the shopkeeper and there is no need to wrap pads in the newspaper.
• We are eventually in the process of learning and unlearning helped us distinguish the right and wrong side of the lifestyle, health, sanitation, cultural taboos, and stereotyping.

In this process of sharing each other’s experiences, the session provided a kind of homely warmth and didn't leave a minute where we couldn't relate to the talks. By the time we came to the end of the session before ending the session we even talked about sexual harassment and share stories related to it. We ended our session with a huge smile on our faces.

Written by - Anushka Devkota (Cohort Coordinator)