A primary school teacher in Bareilly, UP has made it her business to step out of her classroom and help the women in the village understand the importance of menstrual hygiene.

Shringika Rao, a teacher in Brahmpur Upper Primary School in Gorakhpur district, takes a special effort to educate her girl students about periods and the importance of menstrual hygiene, which are a taboo topic in rural areas. The teacher has taken the menstrual health awareness campaign to include the mothers of the girls too.

Kalpana who runs a ‘sanitary pad depot’ in Mirtala village, Uttar Pradesh, has become a confidante of the young girls there who are now able to freely discuss menstruation and personal hygiene issues with her without any hesitation. For the past three years, she has been selling sanitary pads at a cheaper cost to village women.

A number of rural women in Rajasthan are switching over to eco-friendly woven-bamboo sanitary napkins being made by the Jaipur-based non-profit PraveenLata Sansthan. Each washable pad can last up to five years. The NGO has trained women to stitch and sell these pads.

Menstrual hygiene and reproductive health, issues usually talked about in whispers, are now being openly discussed in the rural pockets of Rajasthan. Kishor Mitra, friends of adolescents, who were once victims of social exclusion have scripted this change.