Menstrual hygiene sessions for women in Za’atari camp(Part2)

The Community Hygiene Promoters invite 8 -10 women to participate in the session with them.   Sometimes the sessions are held at JEN’s community center and sometimes at the hygiene promoter’s household. Generally one or two of the JEN staff attend the sessions to support the hygiene promoter.

During the sessions the women learn many new things.    There are a lot of myths and misconceptions about how they can care for themselves in a hygienic way.    Many women begin to understand what is happening in their bodies each month for the first time.  They also ask a lot of questions that go beyond our hygiene sessions so we refer them the doctors in the camp when that happens.  The women are very interested to be learning about this topic.

At the end of the session each woman receives a hygiene kit that was donated to JEN by UN Women.  It contains many supplies that they can use to care for themselves and also items they can use to keep the house clean.

What are the most surprising things we learned through creating these sessions?
Originally we didn’t think that women would be interested.  And we thought that they would already know everything we had to say.   But, we quickly found out that some of them have a lot of questions.  One interesting myth that comes up is related to food.  Some women thought that eating certain foods like lemon, onion, or coffee would be harmful for them and that they also tend to stop cooking during menstruation fearing that the food will be spoiled for their families.    The CHPs have become experts at correcting myths and providing true information.

What will we do next?
The menstrual hygiene topic is so popular that many more women have asked to volunteer as Community Hygiene Promoters with JEN.  Two weeks ago, we conducted an orientation session with 16 new volunteers.  Now they know the general topics of how to communicate, how diarrhea spreads, proper hand washing techniques and times.  The women who are already giving menstrual hygiene sessions are also asking for other topics to discuss.  We have already begun developing a training for them about dental hygiene and after that we will decide on the messages about water conservation.

【JEN is now accepting donations. Your help would be very much appreciated.
DONATE here】