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3500 Nepali Women are
in the Know! 

Sometimes you just have to stop and say WOW! Appreciate that the universe has conspired to bring things together just perfectly and be thankful for all the hard work, trust and support of so many (including many of you) that has gotten us all to this point. 

What are we celebrating? That over 3500 women and girls in Nepal have gotten access to information, education and supplies that will forever change their lives and the lives of their children and communities. It’s a long story but GHT’s non-profit (Conscious Connections Foundation) and the wonderful team put together by our project manager in Nepal, Kesang Yudron, has, in the last 3 years: 

• trained unskilled Nepali women to sew quality reusable menstrual pad kits (over 4500 kits have been made since March 2018)
• put on interactive training programs that provide basic and accessible Menstrual Hygiene training to both urban and rural women, and
• produced  a comprehensive “Nepalcentric” highly illustrated, simple language, menstrual hygiene manual (written, illustrated and graphically designed by an all Nepali team), 

In August of 2020, Kesang was approached by the Lhomi women of the remote Makalu region in far eastern Nepal, near the Tibetan border. They knew they wanted menstrual hygiene education and asked CCF and our Nepali team if we would fund and provide in depth training on women’s health and menstruation to 54 women leaders from 18 of their villages. Along with the training they asked if CCF would fund the production of 3000 reusable menstrual hygiene kits to distribute to women and girls in these villages. These kits would be given out by the local leaders when they returned to their villages to do local training. They also wanted instruction on how to hand sew their own cloth pads for future use! CCF and Kesang said YES and even with Covid the planning started! I am amazed to say that the Lhomi project was just completed on April 9!

The Lhomi project was CCF’s largest project in menstrual hygiene training to date and our amazing program manager, Kesang (also a producer partner of GHT), led the entire project. Kesang and her team of 3 other Nepali women (2 Lhomi-1 a nurse) trekked over 12 days through extremely difficult terrain with 18 donkeys carrying 3000 kits and 300 Nepali menstrual hygiene manuals. They were welcomed warmly and enthusiastically by all.

Kesang returned on April 9th with stories of women, who for the first time ever, were beginning to understand the wonders of what happens in their bodies, learning that we carry eggs and have hormones and that menstruation is the amazing process that gives us the chance to have children, or not! This information is, for the first time, being explained in a simple but comprehensive manner to women who have never gotten the chance to learn about it and they are so excited to receive it. It may not seem like much to us but it is life changing for them. 

Kesang will soon do a full report on the program but for now, we celebrate the accomplishment and the communities that got us this far. Many of you have done fundraisers, put out jars for donations and supported “period Paddi”! Look where you have gotten us! We couldn’t have done it without your support.

Kesang said that her biggest learning from this project was how important it is to get this information to the women in these really remote areas. So, now, after 3 years of much hard work, we have all of the pieces in place: the kits, the training manual and the training experience, and will be able to reach out much more easily to these remote areas where few NGO’s go. 

This is what I love about Fair Trade…a community that sees how valuable giving women access to skills, information and decision making is, not only for themselves, but for their families, communities and the environment.  Ganesh Himal, CCF and our partners in Nepal know that when women have access to information, economy and the understanding and control of their bodies, they can make informed decisions based on their own unique circumstances and needs. Your continued support of our fair trade business and our non-profit work and your understanding about the value of knowledge and its impact on people’s lives is greatly appreciated.

Look for more on this work but for now enjoy the successes you have helped make possible and these fantastic pictures just in from the Lhomi project training. Thank you again for your undying support.

Namaste
Denise

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