Time to break shackles of periods

“I am not allowed to go anywhere near temple or worship place – touch or even see god while I am on periods! It’s just not allowed, I asked my mom but she just scolded me however offered no reason for it.”

We had our second workshop on periods with adolescents as part of our ongoing online gender, sexuality and reproductive health program. The session began with a quick recap of our first session on ‘physical changes during adolescence; it was joyful to watch participants respond quickly to mini question answer series with eagerness!

After going through agreements briefly, a sanitary pad was shown to the participants – with a question – whether they have seen this thing somewhere? Do they know what it is used for? To our surprise, one of the girls who usually seemed quiet raised her hand to answer the questions.

We then invited the group to share their experience of first periods – having big red stain on a white skirt/clothing is the worst nightmare during the periods which was experienced by the people in the group. One of them shared that along with having periods without any information, the fact that ‘you are no longer a child, you are a grown up’ whispered in hushed voices all around them which was evident in the actions, conversations and everywhere in a subtle way was scary.

We took this opportunity to build conversations on what, how and why of periods with the use of pictures, cards and presentations giving scope for the participants to ask questions as an when they wished.

The way periods make entry into the lives of girls in India is not just as physical change but carries a burden of social stigma, taboos, unwanted assumptions and evidently impacting their self-worth. In the next part of the session, we invited participants to share what all they have heard in terms of dos and don’ts while being on periods

 “Don’t pray to god or visit temples. Don’t touch pickles. If by any chance I touch pickles, my mother would scold me so much that I would think twice before touching the pickles even when I am not periods. There are so many restrictions posed! I asked my mom many times as to why I can’t do that – she just yells at me but never a reason was offered to me”

“I love cycling, but when I am on periods – I am not allowed to ride my cycle, play around or even jump. Swimming is not allowed, no entry into kitchen or anywhere near worship area.”

One of the boys shared that he has never heard anything of that sort, also he wasn’t much aware of what periods were before?

Another boy, “If there is any festivities, or some pious work happening then girls are not allowed. They can’t go near worship area, or cook food during auspicious occasion, worst I have heard they are also asked not to speak to boys!”

Sahas strongly believes that all these conversations around periods must include both boys and girls. Many a times, these conversations are carried out exclusively with the girls forgoing the basic fact that everyone co-habitat in the society so keeping physical changes exclusively to one gender may not just raise curiosity for others but may also lead to mockery, being used as an abuse and stigmatization. Now what will boys do with information –

“There are lot of young girls in my family and neighborhood- all this information is not available. Nobody knows about periods. If girls know about this information before they have periods or even during periods – it will be good and they won’t be scared. I can share this information with them – let them know what they can eat or what exercises they could do so that it will help with their pains. With this information, young girls won’t freak out”

“We can stop people from making fun or taking jabs on periods. So now I know about periods and its importance so I won’t make fun and with that I will stop other boys from making a joke out of it”

“I can help my sister and mother during periods by helping in household chores and can bring pad and other necessities from market. I can also speak to my sister if she is comfortable talking about it”   

In the next part of the conversations, one of the facilitator shared her personal experience of making a choice to take up a very difficult, strenuous yet very crucial opportunity while being on periods. We also shared examples from the sports person who no matter what situation are in play tournament. From very beginning of life,  girls are told what to do and what not to do – and these restrictions only increases with physical changes during adolescence like periods which not only limits their opportunities but also restrict their capacity to do things the way they might wish to do. So the primary objective of sharing these narratives was to debunk the myths, taboos, stereotypes and illogical assumptions by providing evidence based examples paving their path to fly as they want!

Every time I facilitate these sessions – there is this tiny hope in me that the periods won’t be like a nightmare for them as it is for most of the women because they lack information and basic access to menstrual hygiene.  

“When you were talking about periods, my mother and sister were sitting in the same room. It was awkward! I was feeling shy as to what would they think of me – I am boy why would I be listening to all the things about periods – but by the end I felt really confident and realized how crucial these information is. Didi, this information must be provided to everyone. I can now talk about it with anyone be it girls or boys making sure they are comfortable to talk about it.”

हैपी मदर्स डे ।

मां तेरे लिए शब्दों के गीत पिरोना मुश्किल है

तेरा मेरा नाता ममता के आंचल जैसा तो है नहीं

हमारा तो तकरार का, नोकझोंक का है नाता

तू वैसी मां तो नहीं जो लाड़-प्यार कर दुनिया से मुझे छिपाती है

तू तो मुझे दिलेरी से दुनिया का सामना करना है सिखाती

ऐसा नहीं है कि फिक्र नहीं है तुझे मेरी

तू तो आगे बढ़कर साथ चलकर मुझे आगे बढ़ाती है।

जीवन के पथ पर तूने धरे है कई रूप

अपने पिता के घर में मुखिया की निभाई भूमिका

हर छोटे-बड़े फैसले लेकर चली कर्तव्य पथ पर

ससुराल में अपनी सूझ-बूझ से जीता सबका मन।

कभी बुरी बनी, कभी झेली उलाहना

पर डटी रही अपने उसूलों पर।

छोटे गांव में खिलखिलाकर हंसती

मुस्कुराती

बेफ्रिक चंचल सी मंडराती

तू फिर चली अपने पिया संग शहर।

गांव- शहर के सामन्ज्य को जैसे तूने अपने जीवन है पिरोया

हैरान हूं मां मैं तेरी इस उड़ान से।

घर-परिवार को बिना रूके, बिना थके संभालती है

फिर भी खुद की अलग पहचान बनना नहीं भूलती

तो फिर बता मां कैसे पिरोऊं तेरी लिए नया गीत।।

Challenging the shame and awkwardness around physical changes as part of adolescence

“I don’t particularly remember something that indicated I am a boy or a girl but people generally used to say that you are a boy and those are girls!”

“I came to know that I am a girl when I had my first periods. Everything changed after that.”

Same question and two polar opposite answers! We kick- started our first ever online gender, sexuality and reproductive health program for adolescents with first workshop on ‘my body is changing’. This program is heart and soul of gender work at Sahas, we have been working for more than 3 years in collaboration with various grass root organizations and government schools to be able to extend sexuality education to adolescents of low socio-economic backgrounds as they are most vulnerable to gender based violence.

COVID-19 crisis posed numerous challenges in building discourse on gender and sexuality with adolescents: mobilization – reaching out to participants from low SEC, do we implement entire program with the same set of participants or conduct separate sessions for different set of participants, what are the dire topics that should be talked about, will the participants be comfortable to engage on these topics through technology and no to forget heavy use of technology – which may or may be available for the participants.  So, we sat down with our collaborating partners and a team was created for ideation, suggestions, and mobilization for inviting the adolescents for gender, sexuality and reproductive health program along with providing technological support to the adolescents who might not have access to laptop or mobile phone.

Adolescence is a very crucial age of life which is dominated by physical changes that facilitates the way for becoming sexual beings – interestingly this entire conversation is missing from the lives of people who enter into adolescence primarily because our context shames the words of sexual organs and sex at large. So, for me – puberty is one of the most important workshop as part of our adolescent program because it is the first step towards unpacking shame, awkwardness that surrounds our sexual organs and physical changes that take place. It is challenging indeed to facilitate on-ground because the participants are exposed to this kind of conversation for the first time, so I didn’t really anticipate how this would turn out online. However I was excited for this challenge because we don’t really know for how long this crisis will go on and god knows what would our new ‘normal’ would be and conversations on gender and sexuality has waited too long to pause here.

The workshop on ‘My body is changing’ began with brief introduction of our work at Sahas, intention setting and objective for this session. We then invited the participants to introduce themselves along with one thing that they are grateful for during this COVID crisis. Their responses were very thoughtful and interesting-

‘Usually I spend lot of time in community library, learning guitar and spending rest of the time with my friends but because of this situation – I am able to spend more time with my family and the best part is I have come to my village for the first time. I am able to appreciate my mom and dad more’

‘I am grateful that I am able to connect through internet and use technology for other purposes than just using it for social media.’

‘Apart from going to school, most of my time is spent in working at local shop. But because of this crisis, I don’t have to do either – there is no work load, I am so relieved, I can play, talk and draw.’

‘I have used this time to hone my creative skills – my painting has become better, I have learnt few more songs and I have got more hobbies’

‘I love cooking and experimenting with it – now I can do it though I have limited supply’

On the question of what made them think they are a boy or a girl for the first time –

‘I came to know that I am a girl because I was given the clothes that are worn by girls. Also the way the language for girls and boys are different – like mein jaati hoon, khati hoo and so on ’

‘My parents never discriminated me! For them it didn’t matter if I am a girl or a boy and they never made me feel that ways. My dad proudly says that I am their son and he loves me no matter what others believes’

‘I got to know that I am girl because of changes in my body’

The next part of the workshop was tricky because we wanted to recreate the activity of body map online. When we do body mapping in schools and communities, it takes efforts to engage them as a group to draw body map, write names of organs and discuss the questions around it but here they were asked to do individually. I am so grateful and happy to see that these participants took a step ahead by creating their body maps and share it with us in the large group.

There was hesitation, confusion and sort of discomfort on talking about good things and bad things about the changes that are happening in their bodies.

‘Our behavior changes, male body gets testosterone – too much of that hormone can influence our sexuality!’

‘The good part is that I used to be physically weak as a child, but now my body is stronger, have more muscles and I feel good about it. But the bad part is that I have hair all over my body – it itches and is irritating. I don’t like it’

‘I hate stomach aches, nausea, cramps and pain in legs that comes as part of periods. I just don’t want to have those kind of pain every month’

‘There are so so many problems that comes with growing up especially for girls. People see you in weird ways, there are many restrictions posed to as to when can we go out, whom we can go out with or what kind of clothes can we wear. This is weird what has physical changes to do with all this restrictions’

Taking cue from the discussion points, we engaged with participants on what does puberty means, what all changes happen during adolescence?, sexual organs and physical changes that happen during adolescence.  We used various tools to make these conversations interactive, participative and fun rather than lecture mode. Few questions followed this discussion-

‘Till when do these changes keep occurring in our body – like till what age?’

‘If these changes don’t happen then what do we do?’

I was thrilled that the conversations that are considered tabooed and absolute no-no in schools and in households, we were able to do them even during COVID-19 crisis. Very happy and amazed by openness, curiosities and vibrant energy these participants brought to the workshop on Puberty!

Post workshop, one of the message made me smile –

‘I enjoyed the session so much. I always thought that if someone asked me about any of these, how I would explain. I was uncomfortable before but now I feel confident because I understand the importance of these conversations. Now I can talk to anyone and explain anything they ask me related to physical changes. What I loved most about this session was that no one was forced to do anything, it’s the way you talk brought comfort to the participants so that they could ask questions without feeling judged or ashamed’

Engaging on hesitation, shame and stigma around sexuality education with Government School teachers

Our first online introductory workshop with the teachers on sexuality education attracted the attention of officials from Government school paving the path for second workshop almost immediately.  With Covid-19, where teachers are engaging with students using digital technology but at the same time they are also seeking opportunity to enhance their own learning.  This adaptability provides a bridge to build conversations on sexuality education which otherwise is very nicely either ignored or imagined as non-existent especially in education system that carries the immense burden of structured syllabus and demand of excellent grades.

The introductory session on sexuality education began with sharing intention for the workshop following brief introduction about our work at Sahas. We then invited participants to introduce themselves along with one thing that they are grateful for during this world wide crisis.

“During this crisis, I am so grateful that I am healthy and not fallen ill. Secondly I am just so thankful for all the farmers because of whom not just me but so many people are getting food to eat and survive.”

“While the entire world is in the clutches of this dreaded disease, I am amazed by the patience people have. People are actually being cooperative and following rules to stay at home which seemed impossible”

In order to build a discourse on sexuality education, we invited them to share their experiences of having witnessed any conversations or situations or being asked questions that made them uncomfortable or they didn’t know how to handle the situation. The kind of response to this question didn’t surprise me but they emphasized the strong need to have sexuality education in schools.

“There are so many incidents that happen that I don’t know how to tackle. Sometimes students draw inappropriate drawings on desks, bathroom walls or in notebooks. Many a times those drawings depicts act which is questionable. There are fights too on this drawings because some of the students mention the name of someone’s mother on them. To cater to those complaints in front of the entire class is very difficult. I try my best to pacify the situation, explain things but I don’t think that’s enough.”

“There is this curiosities towards opposite gender’s body and many a times even with their own gender”

This led to our next discussion on the need of sexuality education for the students. To my surprise, the participants strongly advocated for sexuality education as part of curriculum. One of the teacher openly shared that there must be a course may be a short term subject that should be introduced just when these physical changes begin so that the students can understand their body, get answers to their curiosities and feel that this is normal and not something to be ashamed of.

Another teacher mentioned that subject teachers try to answer questions but they don’t have training to cater to these questions, also they are awkward, hesitant when it comes to engaging on curiosities related to sexuality education. These matters are crucial, sensitive and can have deep impact on student’s life so there should be trained teachers or designed sessions which could be helpful. According to them, the teachers try their best but that’s not really enough.

This workshop brought out one of the very crucial and almost cemented paradox of the shame and stigma around sexuality education. As shared by one of the teachers, “While we are at the topic of reproduction system, I remember my 8^th Standard where our teacher was hesitant in teaching the chapter so some teacher who used to teach 12^th standard came to teach us specific 2-3 related chapters. It was confusing and we were surprised as to why such a senior teacher would come and teach us and why not our own teacher? And then when in 12^th, everything is in detail. Our teacher explained male reproductive system elaborately but nothing about female system, boys had too many questions. I am sure they were excited, can’t say the same about girls. So our teachers asked the interested students to come to lab to discuss the questions. It was a co-ed school so no one actually went.”

It was important to understand that this pattern of not teaching the chapter of reproduction system given in the book approved by education system was not taught 40 years back, 20 years back and at present too! This is not an observation by us, but by the adolescents, parents and now teachers themselves. When teachers hesitate to teach what’s given in the book how in the world will they talk about sexuality education which is much more vast and is not restricted to sex education? It is not just because they are hesitant but are clouded by their own fears, anxieties and assumptions that come as a package with being in this society. Until this pattern is recognized and dismantled, the efforts to integrate sexuality education will be a huge challenge which is quite evident in the current scenario.

“I didn’t understand the hesitation around teaching those chapters while I was a student but now being a teacher it makes even less sense. Teachers need to take a step forward, hold that responsibility and engage on these conversations. I don’t see why they should be feel ashamed of teaching these topics, as a teacher we have this huge duty to shape student’s life. I know questions could be weird but we could answer them to best of our capability”

Another thing that I loved most about this session was the openness and readiness to learn! The teachers acknowledged that they are not fully equipped with the tools and language to engage on the issues of gender and sexuality. At the same time, they welcomed the idea of trainings on the sexuality education so that they could be sensitive and open to situations and questions asked by students.

Introductory workshop for teachers: changing narrative on sexuality education

We at Sahas have been working on the issues of gender, sexuality and reproductive health with the adolescents for more than 3 years now; from many conversations, engagement and sharing, it is evident that students see their teachers as trusted adults, as someone with whom they can ask any questions, share their personal dilemmas, problems and seek support. Also, it is equally important to understand that the students spend most of their time either in school or in home environment, so the teachers bound to have lot of influence over the students – their mindset, thoughts or how they behave affect students not just academically but also their life in broad sense.

We have been in long term collaboration with Government school, Dwarka to implement our adolescent program, however we never really got an opportunity to interact with teachers of the school. With Covid-19, we designed an introductory workshop for teachers and educators on sexuality education inviting them to learn, unlearn, engage and understand the need of sexuality education for students. It is our great pleasure that teachers from Government school, educators from NGOs joined us for this session.

The session began with our introduction, work at Sahas and intention for the next hour briefly following which we invited participants to introduce themselves.

When asked about what brings them to this session, one of them shared, “I was interested to engage on a discussion as to whether or how to bring sex education in sexuality education. To figure out plans, suggestions or theories to engage on this topic.”  

“Sexuality education is very important and equally tabooed. You people are from a NGO, you have more information and knowledge on this topic. We teachers work in typical environment, have very limited knowledge and ways to talk about this issue. You people visit different places, interact with different people and have diverse target groups which enhances your knowledge. I was interesting in learning and gaining more knowledge on sexuality education”

For me, it was a huge Ahhha moment for me when one of the teachers shared about our session with the entire school on Child sexual abuse last year that motivated him to participate in this workshop. There was genuine curiosity to learn and use this knowledge to support students.

In the next part of the session, participants were invited to share any incident or conversation or something they saw their students doing in school that made them uncomfortable or seemed questionable to them. I wasn’t very sure as to whether the teachers would be willing to share something around them but they surprised me! One of the teachers shared that one of the girls came to him and said that she is ill and want to go home. He didn’t know how to address that but was aware what she was going through so he recommended Principal to approve her leave. Here the Principal refused to let her go with her relative and said only if her parents come, meet her and she could identify them then only she would be allowed to go. With us hinting or asking, gender popped up here as even though the teacher wished to help the girl but couldn’t because gender barrier and lack of right language while Principal being of same gender seemed insensitive and unhelpful to the need of the child.

Another educator shared that in his class, one of the boys who was very shy and remain to himself was asked by another student to suck his penis. This shocked him and he didn’t know what to do with this, how in the world such young kids are engaging in this kind of behavior. So, when the parents came in, he had no choice but to talk to the parents of other child. He believes that if he had some idea he could have dealt the situation in some other way.

One of the other participants talked about how different is this discourse with boys and girls. Boys are more eager, they start exploring things pretty early and usage of abuse in their language is like a new norm while girls mostly struggle with stigma, shame and discrimination around periods.

Building on above, we created a discourse on need of sexuality education, changing perspective on how to engage with students with more sensitivity and normalizing these topics so that students can come to teachers, talk about it, ask questions and can make more rational life choices.

Before any of the facilitators could bring out how even Science teachers shy away from teaching reproduction system which is there itself in the text books, one of the participants pointed out that Sex education has been frowned upon since ever because people including from teacher community believe that it is not something that should be taught because it damages and corrupts our society. Though younger generation is bringing a fresh breeze of mindset around it but it is still in nascent stages. It is really sad that even today biology teachers refrain from teaching reproduction because it involves talking about private organs and sex. Whatever work is being done in recent times is not enough, more trainings, more sensitization is needed if we have to build better generation. He also pointed out how the study material is obsolete, insufficient and need revision as per new discourse.

While other educator believes that the discourse on sexuality education must begin from early stages, it should be taught just like any other subject so that this conversation doesn’t erupt abruptly but is normalized.

It was then the group engaged on why these chapters are skipped or not taught in classrooms. One of the young person who was participating in this discussion pointed out how she was always good in biology, studied reproductive system, understood it and got great marks too but it wasn’t until her graduation that she realized that whatever she learnt was just superficial, there is no practicality to it. So she was clueless about sex, love and everything around it. She also shared that she was aware that other students used to laugh about, crack jokes, had awkward behavior around these topics especially when it comes to conversations around boyfriend, girlfriend or reproduction but she never really understood the fuss around it as for her it was just another chapter.

While we shared tools, activities around sexuality education through we engage with adolescents, a very question came up. The question was – it’s good that students understand these stuff but did any parent or teacher came to you and asked you what the hell are you teaching my child? What are the challenges that you faced.

I am not fazed by this question, it’s as if this question is part of our identity because we work in India on the most tabooed topic so if we don’t face challenges or questioned about why are we doing this? Then maybe we are not really hitting the note.

There was an interesting suggestion – one of the teachers shared that just like we have helpline numbers for reporting cases of CSA and violence against women, there should be helpline or a phone line that could answer curiosities, questions and doubts around physical changes or sex!

I was stumped with the openness, vulnerability, curiosity and genuine intention of teachers and it made me really happy that there are teachers who really wish to change the narrative of sexuality education in the current education scenario.

Taking forward the discussion, we invited teachers to think about how they can use their subject knowledge to engage on the topics around sexuality education. It is unbelievable that teachers actually came out with diverse ideas in just an hour of conversation.

“Drawing is not just an art but a tool…a tool that could be a language, an instrument of social change. Students love to draw, and have fun. Most of the time, I ask them to draw something but they draw erotica. I am sure I can use drawing to talk about any topic around sexuality. ”