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Menstrual Hygiene Day is an annual awareness event and is held observed on May 28th of every year. There is nothing to feel shame about concerning mensuration, as it is a natural thing for any girl or woman. Menstruation is a regular natural change that will end up within a few days of the month for any female who has attained puberty. It’s not much easy to be a female as she sheds so some millilitre of blood every month. Every other woman is undergoing lots of hormonal changes during this period. As stigma and misinformation most often surround the menstrual cycle and thus Menstrual Hygiene Day has been created as a way to break all of them. It is an awareness day that highlights the importance of good menstrual hygiene management (MHM).
“When she bleeds the smells I know change colour. There is iron in her soul on those days. She smells like a gun.” – Jeanette Winterson
History of Menstrual Hygiene Day
Menstrual Hygiene Day was observed for the first time in the year 2014. WASH United, a German-based NGO named, has initiated this Awareness Day with an aim to benefit both women and girls globally. The Day is also known as MHD, MH Day, or Menstrual Health Day. May 28th was precisely chosen as May is the 5th month in a year which symbolically represents that most women, on average, are having their period for five days, and their menstrual cycle tends to be at 28 days, and so is the Day. MHD is working in a way to break the silence and thereby build awareness about the fundamental role played by good menstrual hygiene management (MHM) and how MHD is enabling women and girls to reach their full potential.
Globally, there are currently 410 official partners who are supporting this celebration and are committed to making MHM a priority all over the world. Menstrual Hygiene Day is a global platform for all its partners present across all sectors to engage in action, advocacy, and knowledge-sharing about MHM. The MH Day raises awareness of all the challenges that women and girls are facing worldwide due to their menstruation, and it also highlights the solutions to address the challenges, including through media works. In other words, MHD is all about raising awareness about the importance of maintaining good hygiene during this time. Inadequate MHM is found to be directly affecting the health, self-esteem, and education of women and girls.
Menstrual Hygiene Day is creating a united, strong voice for both women and girls around the world regarding menstruation issues. It is working as a platform for bringing together individuals, organizations, social businesses, and the media to bring in some change in the environment. The objectives of MHD are framed in such a way as to help and benefit adolescent women and girls. Menstrual Hygiene Day aims to address the challenges and hardships faced by women and girls during their menstruation. It highlights all the positive and innovative solutions as a way to address these challenges. MHD has built partnerships to deal with it at the national and local levels. The goal of Menstrual Hygiene Day is to engage in policy dialogue and actively provide its support to the integration of MHM into global, national, and local policies, projects, and programs. The Day makes an audible and visible growing transnational movement to promote body literacy and autonomy, and gender equality.
Other Celebrations on May 28
May 28 is also celebrated as
How to Celebrate Menstrual Hygiene Day
Celebrating Menstrual Hygiene Day can be done in many ways. Raise awareness about the importance of maintaining hygiene during the menstrual cycle among adolescent females. It will be very much useful to those who are residing on the rural side. You can indulge in raising funds as a way to help those girls and women who are in need of sanitation. Those funds can be sent to different charities and can be used to provide support for them. If you are a woman or a girl enduring the menstrual cycle, then you must not feel the shame of these natural hormonal changes. Share your awareness thoughts about menstrual hygiene on social media using the hashtag #MenstrualHygieneDay or #MHMDay, or #MenstruationMatters.
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