Celebrated author, newspaper columnist, film producer and former Bollywood star Twinkle Khanna has joined forces with Save the Children to promote rights to menstrual hygiene and adolescent health among children and the communities.
Twinkle Khanna today visited slums in Govandi, where Save the Children and its partner agency Apnalaya, undertook an awareness programme, to interact with adolescents from the community. She encouraged and felicitated children who are ‘Hygiene Champions’ applauded their efforts to break taboos around the subject and bring about a behavioral change in the community.
Twinkle Khanna, Artist Ambassador, Save the Children shared, “I am delighted to join Save the Children to promote adolescent health and menstrual hygiene. Through the adolescent health program, I have firsthand interacted with the youth and learn the strides being made towards changing mindsets, at a time when their habits are not yet ingrained. It is uplifting to partner with Save the Children & Apnalaya for programs that do not just educate girls but also boys to work towards a more progressive society”.
She also felicitated 30 young boys and girls as ‘Hygiene Champions’ today at Shivaji Nagar (Govandi) with Save the Children and Apnalya. She further added, ‘I had a wonderful interaction with some inspiring young champions who are leading the change in their communities. Saleha’s journey as a young ‘Changemaker’, and her accomplishments as an SDG ‘Goalkeeper’ and speaker at the UN General Assembly in New York recently, is an inspiration to many other adolescents who want to bring about a behavioural change in communities. Access to basic health and hygiene should not be a matter of chance but choice and rights. Taboos and lack of awareness around something as natural as menstruation push more than 50 per cent of women to most unhygienic practices. We need to push boundaries, and we need to have more open, honest conversations around menstruation to begin with starting within our own minds and homes.”
Access to basic health and hygiene should not be a matter of chance but choice and rights. Therefore, we need to push boundaries, and we need to have more open, honest conversations around menstruation to begin with” adds Bidisha Pillai, CEO, Save the Children.
Twinkle will promote Save the Children priorities in the area of adolescent health – that includes influencing social behavior change to overcome social taboos, misconceptions and misbeliefs on menstrual hygiene, empowering adolescent girls to take appropriate decisions on management of menstruation, improving the reach and quality of low-cost pads, improving access to sanitation (toilets) at schools and in communities, inculcating hygiene and sanitation behaviors and practices for better management of menstruation in schools and communities.
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