A Leap of Faith: Mardan, and Menstrual Health
What if we saw menstruation not as a secret to be hidden, but as a force to be reckoned with? That’s the audacious question driving our work at Society For Youth. It’s a call to action, a challenge to reclaim this fundamental part of life from the shadows of silence and shame, and a commitment to championing menstrual health for every girl.
“What if we saw menstruation not as a secret to be hidden, but as a force to be reckoned with? That’s the audacious question driving our work at Society For Youth. It’s a call to action, a challenge to reclaim this fundamental part of life from the shadows of silence and shame, and a commitment to championing menstrual health for every girl. “
Ms. Nida Nasreen is conducting #LIME session with the teachers of IT Trainers Education System in Mardan.
The New Vanguard: Mardan’s Teachers Champion a Different Way
In the world of menstrual health education, simply training teachers isn’t enough. We must fundamentally rethink our approach. #LIMEPakistan’s emergence is historic, not just because of the urgent need for care and attention to the crises of menstrual health, but because it introduces a new way of doing. Our #40In4Campaign revealed a grim reality: widespread period poverty, unsupportive school environments, and a complete lack of awareness about menstrual health management. Even more concerning was the discovery that teachers not only lacked the capacity to address menstrual health in their classrooms but were also actively reproducing the very myths we sought to deconstruct.
This blend of institutional, cultural, and educational failings has turned menstruation into an anxiety catalyst, deeply affecting those experiencing menarche. Due to systemic incapacity, menstrual health has become an avoidable national disaster, jeopardizing the lives of millions, most strikingly, students whose academic careers are at a critical crossroads.
“In the world of menstrual health education, simply training teachers isn’t enough. We must fundamentally rethink our approach. #LIMEPakistan’s emergence is historic, not just because of the urgent need for care and attention to the crises of menstrual health, but because it introduces a new way of doing.“
Mardan’s Schools: Anchors for Community Development
On February 24, 2024, Society For Youth organized a one-day training at IT Trainers education system Mardan, engaging a passionate cohort of two dozen female teachers. The success of this session is a powerful reminder that effective community-based development is not only possible but is the direct result of broad-based organizing.
The #LIMEPakistan project is strategically geared toward intentional investments in human capital, institutional strength, and infrastructure to catalyze menstrual healthcare reform. By centering schools as community hubs, we are building an inter-institutional framework, grounded in a relational model of organizing and powered by culturally relevant pedagogy across half a dozen cities in Pakistan.
At Society for Youth, we aim to do more than just train teachers as frontline life-mentors. We empower them with the educational, academic, and infrastructural resources needed to fill the crucial gap in menstrual healthcare education. During our one-day training sessions, facilitators engage directly with teachers, providing them with comprehensive training, thoughtful strategies, #LIMEGuides, and sustainable, eco-friendly SafePads. At the heart of this strategy is a deep commitment to supporting the most vulnerable in Pakistan: young female students whose growth, learning, and development are constantly hampered by period poverty, a disastrous education rife with myths, and an unwelcoming school environment lacking proper mentorship.
“The #LIMEPakistan project is strategically geared toward intentional investments in human capital, institutional strength, and infrastructure to catalyze menstrual healthcare reform.”
A Day of Transformation: Inside the Training Session
The one-day training session at IT Trainers education system fostered a space for passionate and deep dialogue, designed to jumpstart productive collaborations among teachers and, by extension, their students. Within a normative Pakhtun community and cultural landscape, these private and respectful spaces are crucial for facilitating long-term, meaningful change and fostering productive academic discourse that extends from the classroom to the home.
The broad range of activities and case studies pushes participants to brainstorm pragmatic and creative solutions for addressing menstrual health gaps both inside and outside the classroom. For example, a case study like Tracking Your Period To Win Big highlights the significance of understanding the menstrual cycle. Though simple, it sparks deeper reflection on how to effectively mentor female students, especially during menarche or in younger high school age groups, about their cycles.Transformational capacity building and promoting systems thinking in education for menstrual healthcare requires a comprehensive analysis of all stakeholder needs, with female students being the most important. Activities like Making Puberty Easier for Younger Friends center the emerging challenges of young female students within a broader discussion of menstrual healthcare and women’s health advocacy. Teachers engaged enthusiastically, sharing their vast classroom experiences and observations about their students.This powerful engagement was fueled by a mix of personal challenge and their own experiential learning in the classroom. With great zeal, teachers brainstormed creative ideas like storytelling and poems to convey menstrual health education. Such activities are designed to integrate culturally relevant pedagogy, giving local teachers the agency to not only identify the need for meaningful menstrual education, by using local ideas and examples, but also to serve as a critical starting point for reflexive leadership focused on institutional capacity development.
Our approach is intentionally reflexive. We discovered through our #40In4Campaign that teachers often lacked mentorship skills and, more critically, personally believed in the same harmful cultural myths. The #LIMEPakistan curriculum, therefore, facilitates a two-way dialogue, a student-teacher engagement, to prepare teachers for both their own healthy menstrual journeys and to equip them to mentor students effectively.
The training also addressed the system-wide impact of menstrual health by introducing a critical and often-overlooked topic: the environmental consequences of menstrual products. Teachers engaged in a serious discussion on sanitary products, highlighting how insanitary options cause infections and identifying safe, hygienic alternatives.
In a socio-cultural landscape where reliable menstrual education is scarce, a conversation on sustainable products is a significant leap forward. Teachers showed great interest in SafePads, the reusable and sustainable sanitary products they received with their #LIMEGuides. Their excitement to learn about sustainable best practices and sanitary products underscores the urgent need for even basic education in this area.
“Within a normative Pakhtun community and cultural landscape, these private and respectful spaces are crucial for facilitating long-term, meaningful change and fostering productive academic discourse that extends from the classroom to the home. “
“Transformational capacity building” and promoting systems thinking in education for menstrual healthcare requires a comprehensive analysis of all stakeholder needs, with female students being the most important.”
These activities are powerful because they create a space of mutual recognition around the urgency of menstrual health issues and the need for both transformational capacity building and institutional capacity development. The teachers at IT Trainers education system, who shared a Pakhtun ethnic identity and diverse academic backgrounds, found this environment particularly effective for frank, personal, and thoughtful conversations about their community’s existing needs.
These one-day training sessions emphasize the importance of systems thinking in education. Here, the teachers collective experiential learning is applied to a critical approach toward culturally grounded knowledge and myths, an earnest discussion about mentoring students, and a push for a more welcoming school infrastructure. From deconstructing myths to co-generating creative activities for students and identifying best practices for sanitary products, teachers underwent a complete menstrual training rollercoaster.
While menstrual health training is needed everywhere, it is especially impactful in communities that have been historically neglected. Regions like Mardan, where public discourse on this topic is undernourished, benefit profoundly from #LIMEPakistan training sessions. The impact can be seen immediately as teachers bring their new knowledge back to the classroom, serving as guidance counselors for young females who are facing menarche or enduring menstrual challenges in silence.
These activities are powerful because they create a space of mutual recognition around the urgency of menstrual health issues and the need for both transformational capacity building and institutional capacity development. The teachers at IT Trainers education system, who shared a Pakhtun ethnic identity and diverse academic backgrounds, found this environment particularly effective for frank, personal, and thoughtful conversations about their community’s existing needs.
These one-day training sessions emphasize the importance of systems thinking in education. Here, the teachers collective experiential learning is applied to a critical approach toward culturally grounded knowledge and myths, an earnest discussion about mentoring students, and a push for a more welcoming school infrastructure. From deconstructing myths to co-generating creative activities for students and identifying best practices for sanitary products, teachers underwent a complete menstrual training rollercoaster.
While menstrual health training is needed everywhere, it is especially impactful in communities that have been historically neglected. Regions like Mardan, where public discourse on this topic is undernourished, benefit profoundly from #LIMEPakistan training sessions. The impact can be seen immediately as teachers bring their new knowledge back to the classroom, serving as guidance counselors for young females who are facing menarche or enduring menstrual challenges in silence.
“While menstrual health training is needed everywhere, it is especially impactful in communities that have been historically neglected. Regions like Mardan, where public discourse on this topic is undernourished, benefit profoundly from #LIMEPakistan training sessions.”
Challenging Myths, Building Trust: A Transformative Impact
The #LIMEGuide’s module on Myths and Challengescovers a range of common taboos and the social restrictions females face daily. This creates an invigorating and thoughtful moment of reflection. Participants engage in a dynamic activity where facilitators first ask teachers about their existing beliefs and then correct any unfounded myths they may have been practicing throughout their lives.
This naturally led to a wholesome and productive discussion where teachers expressed not only initial shock but a hard-felt alarm. As one facilitator remarked, “some teachers were well aware of hygiene while others were justifying myths.” Crucially, the majority of the participating teachers were myth believers, highlighting the risk of perpetuating these cultural falsehoods inside and outside the classroom.
This echoes our findings from the #40In4Campaign, where students reported receiving most of their menstrual education from family members, not teachers. If teachers are drawing their knowledge from the same cultural well, it’s natural for them to reproduce these very myths in the classroom. This creates a harmful, self-perpetuating cycle of misinformation in both formal and informal education.
It’s these reflective moments, characteristic of our relational model of organizing, that underscore the vital need for women’s health advocacy. This deeply personal moment of challenging cultural myths, combined with a session on menstrual management focused on common practices and their long-term health consequences marks a pivotal turning point.
“As one facilitator remarked, “some teachers were well aware of hygiene while others were justifying myths. Crucially, the majority of the participating teachers were myth believers, highlighting the risk of perpetuating these cultural falsehoods inside and outside the classroom.”
During the menstrual management segment, teachers discussed a variety of topics, including effective strategies for dealing with menstrual crises, and identifying efficient and affordable alternatives. Our #LIMEPakistan facilitators work to strike a crucial balance between challenging deeply held myths and facilitating productive dialogue on pragmatic alternatives. As one facilitator reflected, the teachers were “more interested in listening to life-like examples,” which further validates the importance of the culturally relevant pedagogy embedded in the #LIMEGuide. This is at the core of our approach to community engagement and
leadership and grassroots organizing, where teachers are at the center of collective action, which makes it easier for them to share their own stories.
This powerful engagement at IT Trainers education system in Mardan was more than a simple shift in taboos. It showcased the deep trust building that SFY’s relational model of organizing emphasizes, fostering self-agency and critical consciousness. We believe that successful menstrual health reform and social justice activism must be sincerely predicated on deep relational power and a culturally resonant, locally rooted model of leadership.
“A girl’s period should never be a source of shame or a barrier to her education. When a teacher, armed with knowledge and empathy, can create a safe space, it changes everything.”
Why It Matters: Reclaiming Dignity, Fostering a Future
So, why does all of this matter? Because a girl’s period should never be a source of shame or a barrier to her education. When a teacher, armed with knowledge and empathy, can create a safe space, it changes everything. It means fewer girls miss school, fewer girls suffer from health complications due to misinformation, and fewer girls endure the trauma of their first period in silence.
The #LIMEPakistan project isn’t just about providing pads or a curriculum; it’s about a profound act of community solidarity. It’s about empowering a new generation of leaders, teachers, to dismantle centuries-old stigmas, one honest conversation at a time. It’s a testament to our belief that by investing in schools and the dedicated individuals who lead them, we can build a future where every girl in Pakistan can embrace her body, her education, and her potential without fear. This is more than a training; it’s a movement to reclaim dignity, one classroom at a time.
Acknowledging Champions of Change
We extend our deepest thanks to Principal Asad Khan for his kind and generous support in making this training session a reality. Educational leaders are crucial in raising awareness about critical issues, and through this partnership, IT Trainers education system has helped create a much-needed impact by boosting teachers capacity and becoming a member of a national network of menstrual education changemakers. We are also grateful to our dedicated facilitators, Nida and Arooj, for their talent and time in leading this successful training.
“The #LIMEPakistan project isn’t just about providing pads or a curriculum; it’s about a profound act of community solidarity. It’s about empowering a new generation of leaders, teachers, to dismantle centuries-old stigmas, one honest conversation at a time.”
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About LIME Pakistan & SFY
LIME Pakistan is a transformative initiative by Society For Youth, dedicated to empowering communities and fostering sustainable change in menstrual health management across Pakistan. Through its unique Schools as Community Anchors model, LIME Pakistan aims to build local leadership, integrate comprehensive menstrual health education, and challenge societal taboos to ensure that every girl and woman can experience menstruation with dignity and knowledge.
Society For Youth (SFY) is a non-profit organization committed to fostering sustainable community development through grassroots organizing, education, and empowering local leadership. SFY’s broad-based model emphasizes relationality and collective action, working to address complex social challenges and build resilient communities from within.
To learn more about our work, donate, or support our mission, please feel free to reach out to us via info@society4youth.org. You can also visit the #40in4Campaignwebsite for more insights into the foundational research that led to LIME Pakistan.