Rural Nepal is exceptionally poor. Most families are subsistence farmers with small plots of land barely able to produce enough food. It’s reported that half of all families have a family member working abroad, usually in construction, warehouses or as domestics. Around 25% of national income comes via remittances. 

Although now illegal, child marriage is still common. Village primary schools have few resources other than shared textbooks. At age 11 children move to secondary school, which for most means a walk of up to two hours to get to school and the same to return home. School often starts by 7am as children tend to work in the fields or collect firewood or vegetation for their goats in the afternoon. 

Secondary schools are very, very basic by our standards. Often boys and girls share toilets of simple construction with no hooks or shelves to allow girls to change during their periods. As a result many miss school each month, fall behind in their studies and eventually drop out of education early. 

Lack of education is particularly true of women who are now in their 30s. Their teenage years coincided with extreme poverty and the Maoist insurrection during which most schools were closed. 

The upshot is a population with scant knowledge of menstruation and hygienic ways to manage. Traditional myths play into this so in many communities women are “untouchables” during their periods.

Women get by using old clothes, they do not understand the need to change often, nor do they know about proper washing and drying – old clothes are put away damp, often because of the embarrassment, allowing bacteria to grow and infect next time they are used. There is no public education programme. 

The government has begun giving some schoolgirls, but by no means all, some disposable pads, but nowhere near enough. The girls tell us they are of really poor quality and do not like to use them.

There are two major problems with encouraging the use of disposable pads in Nepal.  First, they are expensive and even more so in harder to reach villages. They can cost the equivalent of 15p-25p each and the average Nepali woman is 17 times poorer than the average UK person.

If they do buy some disposables there is a tendency to wear the pad for far too long. 

Second, there is no waste collection facility in a village and through lack of knowledge used pads are thrown in the bushes or into the river. In the larger towns rubbish is collected, sometimes sorted by hand (slum dwellers retrieve plastics they can sell), and then often dumped in huge piles alongside rivers. 

Our Freedom Kit Bag seeks to address these issues. 

The storage bag is made from recycled old saris. There are 12 cotton-rich pads plus six thinner ‘inserts’ so woman can add more absorbency when needed.

We give three pairs of panties and three padholders to keep the pads secure with a waterproof lining to prevent leakage.  We include a small ‘dry-bag’ to place used pads when women are away from home and need to change.

And we give a small carry purse so women can take clean pads and underwear with them. There’s also soap (to get them in the habit of hand washing) and a line and pegs to remind them to dry in the sun.

Everything is bright and cheerful – a celebration. 

All materials are sourced in Nepal and the kit bags made in one of six sewing rooms so that women can earn a small income. From user feedback we know the ‘kit’ lasts three years or more.

To receive a kit bag a woman or girl (and sometimes grandfathers, husbands and sons) must attend a 45+ minute education programme. We explain the facts of menstruation and its role in reproduction.

We discuss common issues like discomfort, aches and what constitutes “normal” for each individual. We talk about healthy diets and the benefits of less spice, sugar and alcohol.  

We teach the need to wash hands (farmers will handle manure with their hands) and teach how to use their pads. We discuss the need to change often, to wash themselves with just water rather than strong soaps. We demonstrate the ‘rinse, soak, wash and thoroughly dry’ method of caring for their pads.

Finally, we show how they can hand sew replacement pads when needed, using our pads as the template.

So far over 20,000 women and girls have received a Freedom Kit Bag and the education - that amounts to over 3,500,000 days of comfort and dignity.

Your help is requested as there is so much more to do.