Menstrual & reproductive health for adolescents
Designing together
Team: Ashwin S & Devarani Bodanapu
Brief:
This project focused on menstrual and reproductive health for adolescents living in communities/villages around Udaipur.
The 2 weeks workshop was about breaking the taboo of mensuration and nightfall in their communities by facilitating design for creating artifact or materials that will help in spreading awareness.
Who did we design it with?
We designed it with a group of adolescents : Koushalya, Raveena and Ronak(image below) from the rural areas of Udaipur who were between the age group of 10-14 years.
Process
Understanding the community
Initially we set out on a field trip for understanding how the communities around Udaipur are. How they
work, what is their lifestyle and what objects they are surrounded on which their livelihood is depends?
- After observing, our vision about the community had changed before our session with adolescents.
Creating rapo with the kids
Initially it was too difficult to bring them out of their inhibitions and discuss on the topic openly.
Sharing our thoughts and experiences with the adolescents to create a rapo and understand their
take towards Mahawari (mensuration) or Swapnadosh (nightfall) better.
Awareness on Mensuration & Nightfall
Learning about mensuration and nightfall from
Ms. Lakshmi murthy. We had in-depth orientation and discussions on menstrual cycle and reproductive health. After which it was easier for us to work
with adolescents and concise our thoughts on the topic.
Facilitating
We as designers went there to facilitate the adolescents to create and spread awareness on mensuration and nightfall. The facilitation was quite a challenge as the kids after some point got annoyed. The idea here was to introduce them to different mediums, through which they can convey their thoughts easily. Out of which sketching was chosen as a medium to express their thoughts.
Outcomes
Awareness based cards
A 24 hour hack-e-thon helped us to create content that the adolescents can take home and share their experiences with
their families and communities. The idea was to create pop up cards that has a satirical way of explaining the taboo of mensuration and nightfall. The kids were introduced to these pop up cards to put down their thoughts visually.
For example: On the right the card talks about men who have had nightfall the previous night were not allowed inside the temple. Why? Because in villages women are not allowed inside the temple when they are having periods.
Service design idea - Hare Chacha
Hare Chacha is the mascot of our service. Hare chacha as we call him, is a generous character that appeals to everyone and has
seen the perspectives of both village and city. Hare chacha goes to different villages, districts and cities to create awareness among people on menstrual health and nightfall through storytelling. Hare chacha is a character that can be played by anyone to create awareness among people.
