Take care of the flowers and teach young girls left behind
“young people come from day to day. The mosses are as small as rice, and they're like cops."
For children in flower seasons, growth is always accompanied by a variety of problems, perhaps more for girls in remote areas. How do they cope with the confusion of adolescence? How can we cope with growing up
Over the past eight years, members of the team have travelled over 50,000 kilometres, covering yunnan, ningxia, sichuan, chongqing and gansu, distributing more than 100,000 physio-sanitary kits free of charge to girls in remote areas, accompanying and funding more than 9,000 girls on a one-to-one basis, and reaching a total of over 70,000 girls。
This force is known as the china social welfare foundation's girls-friendly fund for the purpose of caring for and helping girls in remote areas. Since its establishment in 2013, an increasing number of mountain girls have been helped to learn about physical hygiene and to face every change in their development。
Change
Start with a clean pair of underwear for the kids
"you know what this is? Please take out the hairsticks and put them on your head." from the podium, a female teacher presented a girl's bag designed by the fund to give girls a description of the contents and methods used。
"the little girl is actually a physical hygiene bag." the secretary-general of the china foundation for social welfare, zhang zhou zhou zhou zheng, introduced the fact that girls were usually shy when they first became exposed to physical hygiene-related knowledge. At this time, little girl is often a good way to break the deadlock。
Little girl, divided into sister bag and sister bag. The sister's bag is distributed mainly to girls in primary and secondary schools from the fourth grade onwards, and the sister's bag is distributed mainly to girls in the first to third grade of primary school. The sister's bag contains two pairs of underwear, one laundry soap, one damp-proof bag, one biosanitary card, one hair coop, and one hair-trigger. In contrast, the sister's bag was short of hair and two more bags of sanitary towels for day and night, respectively。
“a number of years ago, when we visited remote areas, we found that some girls did not develop good physical hygiene and lack a sense of self-protection.” according to zhang, many girls in remote areas are left behind and their mothers are not around for years. Many girls are about to reach puberty or are already in adolescence, but have little access to relevant physical health information. They often face unquestioned embarrassments about changes in their bodies during adolescence. Some of the elders are hiding behind this, others are avoiding it and think that when the children grow up they will understand it. For the first time in their period of menstruation, some panic, lack of information on how to deal with them, others were embarrassed and ashamed, and some even thought that they were seriously ill。
“a girl i remember most, atto, who first came with a period of menstruation, thought she was suffering from incurable illness, and then secretly wrote a suicide note to parents thousands of miles away.” zhang zhou zhou zheng said that in order to remedy the situation, the little girl-bag project was officially launched in 2014。
“improve the physical hygiene of girls left behind in remote areas, starting with a clean set of underwear for girls.” zhang zhou zheng said that undergarments were the first pair of coats for girls, and that the presence of young girls was intended to remind them of the need to protect privacy and to change their underwear。
Introduction
Dissemination of information on physical and mental health and changes in backward perceptions
"we can't let people see it, we can't let them touch it."
"yes!"
This is a scene that's been played in the little class a lot。
In zhang's view, the girl child is only the first step in improving the physical and mental health of these girls, accompanied by education and guidance that will provide them with scientific, correct and practical knowledge。
“each time we distribute a little girl's bag, we synchronize the specialty classes with them, so that girls can teach them about their physical and mental health and lead them to a good health awareness.” zhang zhou zhou zheng explained that the focus of the classroom for young girls of different ages is different, and that it includes, in addition to basic physical and mental health information, self-protection components; for girls who are about to reach puberty, the physical and mental changes of female adolescence, menstrual health care, etc. Through the “girls + girls' classroom” model, girls are able to learn about basic physical and mental health and to solve many of the problems of adolescence。
During the field visits, zhang zhou zhou and members of the team found that many of the best-selling sanitary towels in some villages and in the commissary near the school were unknown。
“in fact, some children are not unable to afford sanitary towels, but the question is how to make them value their health and choose good hygiene items.” according to zhang zhou, some rural commissaries also have formal branded sanitary towels, which are usually for a dozen dollars, while rags contain a number of counterfeit and bad items, some of which are for $5. In contrast, girls tend to buy anything cheap, which is gradually leading to a reluctance to enter expensive sanitary towels when sellers arrive。
More than a dozen dollars seemed to be an understatement, but a lot of girls left behind for a month, and many girls were reluctant to ask their families for that money and had to choose the cheapest poor sanitary towels. To this end, since last year, ai-yi has been trying to build long-term “girl gas stations” in some schools to provide rural girls with continuous sanitary towels for their daily use of physical hygiene。
“many girls do not understand that the use of poor sanitary towels can easily cause inflammation. In the final analysis, it is necessary to guide the children in the right direction and to help them to develop healthy mental health concepts.” zhang zhou zhang said that, without the accompanying education and guidance, even if the material problems were resolved at once, girls might still feel psychologically unnecessary to use good sanitary towels to spread awareness of physical hygiene and change backward attitudes in order to really help them solve the problem。
Liberia
To help more girls stay healthy
“and then, after she learned that the menstruation was the symbol of the girl's upbringing, her first reaction was that if she had children in the future, she would have told her in advance that she would not be as helpless as herself.” according to zhang, “increased awareness of mother's health is more conducive to the upbringing of the next generation”
Wan huiyu is a staff member of the yongxiang social work service centre in yangyang, henan province. In her view, these girls are in great need of outside attention and support, “materials are not the most important, they are now fully out of poverty and children need more spiritual care. Every time we go to school, many kids are so excited and happy to see us. I can't tell you how happy i am to see children becoming more and more confident.”。
One of the schools covered by the girls' programme is the vanzhou high school in chongqing city, where the party secretary and headmaster are actively involved in the introduction of the public interest organization's love project into the school system. “a semester has been devoted to teaching women how to use sanitary towels, how to know their bodies, how to protect girls from sexual abuse, the boundaries of correct interaction between men and women”。
“our school also has a box in the girls' toilet where two bags of sanitary towels are put for emergency use.” according to the royal authority, girls have changed significantly over the years, not only taking a bath, washing clothes, but also becoming more active and generally more bright, as “girls often found menstruation to be dirty, and thus became inferior and reluctant to meet. After the physio-sanitary classes, the children become comfortable with the physiology period. For example, physical education is taught during a physical period, and it is over for girls to take leave of absence from more intense physical activities, and for children to be taught not to touch cold water during their physical period and not to exercise in violent sports.”
“during the past eight years, the love girl has received increasing support.” according to zhang, in recent years public service platforms such as the internet have developed channels of communication between public interest organizations and the general public. Thanks to this, last year's “99 days of public interest”, atf joined several media outlets to publish stories of mountain girls and received many positive feedback. This year's “99 public service day” is still planned by the fund for the love of the girl child to reach out to other media and disseminate quality public goods。
In recent years, girls ' physical health education in remote areas has attracted increasing attention, with many schools offering girls a course on physical health, and in addition to loving young girls, many public-interest actors are actively involved in initiatives to help girls. These efforts are helping more girls left behind to grow into independent, courageous and confident women。
Wang meihua
