Holistic menstrual health education – when done well – can be transformational! We provide comprehensive training – either remotely or face to face – in how to deliver an effective and empowering menstrual health educational session.

We have a facilitator’s guide and accompanying facilitators kit which includes all the information and resources you will need to provide menstrual health education to adolescent girls who are learning about menstruation for the first time. A guide for education with other populations is under development

What topics are covered?

• Female Anatomy, Menstruation, and the Menstrual Cycle — Including instruction in menstrual cycle tracking providing a powerful tool for cultivating body literacy.
• Taking Care of Ourselves During Menstruation — Hygiene, nutrition, exercise and natural remedies
• Menstrual Products — Learn about different menstrual absorbents and the proper use and care for products to ensure safety, good health and sanitation. Product analysis offers a possibility to make informed product choices.
• Safe space for practice speaking — Learn how to have conversations about menstruation and explore cultural practices, free of judgement
  One-off sessions for groups

We welcome the chance to interact with audiences on menstruation related themes and we can customise presentations to address the needs of specific audiences.

Some of the topics we can cover include:
What is sustainable menstruation and why does it matter including exploring what menstrual product options are out there and their pro’s and con’s
Facilitate workshops on how to hand stitch a cloth pad
Menstrual health education – how to conduct awareness sessions with tailored to the needs of different groups that is sensitive to ecological concerns and can facilitate cultural shift
How to gain more confidence to speak about menstruation.
Women’s leadership and Eco Femme as a model Social Enterprise.

From time to time we train other organisations in how to stitch cloth washable pads to provide a local livelihood for rural women. We have created a knowledge production kit and a 3-day training module for this purpose.

We do this with discernment as we have observed that unless there is strong market development and economical investment for some time, cloth pad making ends up being a loss-making undertaking.

There are a number of reasons for this:
Firstly, cloth pads are not a cheap product to manufacture – the raw material costs, stitching charges and overheads associated with pad production make a cost price below Rs 100 challenging to achieve.
The next problem then becomes selling the pad due to the stiff competition with disposable pads which are seen as more cost-effective and convenient than cloth pads.
Before getting into production, it is highly recommended that market research including probes around willingness to pay for cloth pads be undertaken to ensure a good understanding of the market dynamics for selling cloth pads. This support can be provided under our pads for sisters initiative.

We routinely host a deep dive 3 day residential workshop in Auroville suitable for ambassadors and menstrual health educators. It is highly experiential, supports peer based learning and helps foster a community of menstrual education practitioners and activists who seek collective transformation in the way we relate to menstruation in culture.

Eco Femme has created a number of presentations, videos and digital learning resources to help you deepen your understanding and pass on knowledge to others.

A useful toolkit (powerpoint) to help ambassadors and educators learn about themes such as:
Situational analysis of menstruation in India
Understanding the process of menstruation and cycle tracking
What are cloth pads and why sustainable menstruation matters
Analysing the health, environmental and cultural dimensions of various product options
Creating a period positive culture
Sanitary waste: Masika (video documentary) dirty secrets (document)
Why make the switch to cloth pads: posters in different languages
Menstrual Education in rural Communities: 4 part video series was created to support menstrual health educators in building the knowledge, skills and confidence to deliver effective menstrual educational sessions to women and girls in areas where learning is not accessed online | Watch in English
Menstrual Health Education in the Classroom: 4 part series of instructional videos created to help menstrual educators gain the confidence and knowledge to convey key concepts. | Watch in English
Menstrual Conversation starters: 28 conversation women – 28 conversations men and boys
Yoga for menstruation
Menstrual cycle tracking sheet
PCOS fact sheet
Medicinal plants to treat menstruation
How to conduct product analysis: Short explanatory introduction – Detailed session