Jammu and Kashmir [India], Oct 22 (ANI): Seher Mir, a 17-year-old Class 12 girl from Pampore in Pulwama, raises awareness on two taboo topics, mental health and menstruation. As part of her campaign, she conducts awareness campaigns in public schools and among women in rural areas.
As part of its campaign, it carries out awareness campaigns in public schools and among women in rural areas.
Andleb-i-Firdous, also known as ‘ZOON’, is a non-profit youth organization, whose seeds were sown by Seher Mir in October 2021.
The organization works to raise awareness of menstruation and mental health through important uplifting milestones and its people.
The main objective of the organization is to teach the values of women’s health, menstrual hygiene management and sanitation among rural girls and women.
His determination had a domino effect and what began as the creation of a single individual grew into a team of 50 like-minded teenagers.
While speaking to ANI, Sehar Mir said: “When we talk about Kashmir, women have been more targeted and isolated when they accept the menstrual cycle as a natural phenomenon and openly talk about it. In rural areas, women lack safe spaces where they can talk openly about menstruation and related issues. They are unaware of safe menstrual hygiene practices and sustainable solutions for menstruation.”
“Most of the rural women in Kashmir still use dirty pieces of cloth as pads during menstruation for many reasons. One of the main reasons why sanitary products are not used during menstruation is shyness. They are embarrassed to buy sanitary pads. We start from the birthplace of an important Kashmiri personality, Habba Khatun. In her birthplace, Chandhara, we lead many menstrual health campaigns to provide accessible menstrual products while educating girls about menstrual health and hygiene,” she said.
She said they are doing awareness campaigns not only about menstruation and mental health, but also about climate change and economic stability.
“We are also raising awareness in public schools. Our focus is to switch to private schools now as well. She said. I started with my own pocket money but eventually started a fundraiser and raised around 50k. Then aside from this, I have some people who volunteer to donate money to the organization,” she said.
“Over time, Andleb-i-Firdous, commonly known as ZOON, has expanded its goals and now addresses not only mental health and menstruation, but also issues like climate change and economic stability in its awareness campaigns. The campaigns are characterized by the distribution of sanitary pads at the end,” she added.
In addition, ZOON addresses a variety of mental disorders, menstruation and hygiene, and sexual abuse through its Instagram account @andleb_i_firdous, Sehar said.
According to Sehar Mir, since the establishment of the “zoon”, 50 unpaid volunteers from the NGO have managed to carry out awareness campaigns in remote areas such as Pattan Baramulla, Mirgund Baramulla, Chandhara Pampore, Shar Shali Pampore, Laltrag Pampore and Zantrag Pulwama, and many other backward villages of Kashmir passing on their share of knowledge to more than 600 students and distributing more than 10,000 free sanitary pads among them.
She said that they have received recognition from the authorities for their work and are quickly gaining recognition through their Instagram account.
“In Kashmir, there are very few student-led organizations. It is mainly due to social pressure not to go in these directions and just focus on studies. I was a person who always wanted to make people aware of the stereotypes that exist in our society and really help people,” she said.
“By creating this organization, I was able to reach people and finally started doing what I had long aspired to do. The best thing was the response I received from the students, which motivated our team even more”, he added.
She also explained the situation of stigma in the country regarding menstrual problems.
“According to one study, 88% of menstruating women in India use home alternatives like old cloth, while 63 million teenage girls live without sanitation facilities. Ignorance, poverty and neglect are the main reasons for poor menstrual hygiene,” she said.
“Even in modern times, conversations about topics like mental and menstrual health are often avoided. Even more so in rural areas where the first waves of modernization have not yet arrived, this has had disastrous, albeit expected, consequences. The unaware masses have heavily stigmatized issues that need to be addressed as a priority,” he said.
“I have some classmates of core members of my zoon, namely Nuha Masood (DPS), a 12th class student, Ahmad Wani (DPS), a 12th class student, and Fayiez Rafiq (Burnhall), a student 12th class. In such a scenario, raising awareness becomes the first major step in countering stigmatization,” she added. (AND ME)
This report is automatically generated from the ANI news feed. ThePrint is not responsible for its content.
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