Girl, Let’s Talk About It! With Sinu Joseph [Video]

Thousands of young women agree with Sinu Joseph, who believes that talking about your period is the first step in taking care of a woman’s health and hygiene.  Do you?

She went from  being a volunteer who taught spoken English at a local government school to educating over 6000 girls in Karnataka on menstrual health, in a span of three years. For Sinu Joseph, this involves approaching the topic of menstrual health and hygiene amongst both girls and women in a personal rather than academic manner, and influencing mindsets that consider menstruation and menstrual cycles unhealthy.

In this refreshing conversation over chai with Lakshmi, Sinu shares her experiences of working in rural India, empowering women, and including men in the dialogue. In addition to speaking to girls and educating them, Sinu has also created a regional animated film that will help girls understand their own bodies, and how to take care of their health better. Her motivation is the need to lower health risks that accompany lack of information.

To me, one of the things that stands out from the conversation is this statement: “I’ve done training sessions in corporate spaces, and these educated women cannot talk about their own period. That is what needed to change”.

Before you watch the episode, take a look at these facts that set the context to Sinu’s work and help you understand existing problems better.

• 23 percent of girls in India leave school when they begin to menstruate

• 70 percent of Indian women cannot afford sanitary pads

• Lack of knowledge on menstrual health and hygiene leads to health risks such as prolonged UTI’s and in the long run, cervical cancer – which is the leading cancer amongst Indian women, killing over 73 thousand annually

  

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Now, watch the episode!

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