When visiting the project manager and lawyer Mr Cyrilraj, we noticed that everything is perfectly organised. There are currently 2,600 sets of sanitary towels in the warehouse, which will be used up in the next 4-5 weeks. The three-part awareness seminars with trained seminar leaders are still taking place.
The project has started very well. Initially, Mr Cyrilraj had to ask the schools for appointments and hold the seminars after school hours. Now, at the request of the school headmasters, the seminars are held during school hours. The waiting list for schools, villages and tea plantations has grown long.
Thanks to the initiative of “our” seminar leaders, groups of 18-25 women have been formed who now do most of the preparatory work so that the seminar leaders only have to organise the seminars. Networks have been created in which the groups of women stay together and discuss how they can help the community. For example, they support each other with clothes for births and use their contacts to exchange ideas with other groups.
We visited two different women’s groups in remote tea plantations. The journeys are sometimes adventurous, as the villages can only be reached by three-wheeler. The roads are too bad for cars. The women are already waiting for us and tell us that these seminars are very important to them. The women in these villages cannot afford hygiene products, especially when there are 2-3 girls in the family. They are desperately waiting for the education seminars and the sale of sanitary towels.
To our astonishment, we met the leader of a women’s group in this remote area, a political scientist. She told us that the women’s groups that had been set up were planning to organise other seminars, such as children’s rights and women’s rights. What “our” seminar leaders have achieved is fantastic. Women all over the region are joining forces and helping each other!