About Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) One of the key components of the National Rural Health Mission is to provide every village in the country with a trained female community health activist ASHA. Selected from the village itself and accountable to it, the ASHA will be trained to work as an interface between the community and the public health system.Other Information of Menstural Hygiene Scheme – The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has been implementing this scheme for promotion of menstrual hygiene among adolescent girls in the age group of 10-19 years primarily in rural areas as part of the Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram. |
To address the need of menstrual hygiene among adolescent girls residing primarily in rural areas, Government of India is supporting the Menstrual Hygiene Scheme.
Under the Menstrual Hygiene Scheme –
- Funds are provided to States/UTs through National Health Mission for decentralized procurement of sanitary napkins packs for provision primarily to rural adolescent girls at subsidized rates.
This scheme is encompassing the following:
- Increasing awareness among adolescent girls on
Menstrual Hygiene
- Improving access to and use of high quality sanitary napkins by adolescent girls in rural areas.
- Ensuring safe disposal of Sanitary Napkins in an environmentally friendly manner.
- Provision of funds to ASHAs to hold monthly meeting with adolescents to discuss issues related to menstrual hygiene.
Information Education and Communication (IEC) Material Developed:
- A range of IEC material has been developed, using a 360
degree approach to create awareness among adolescent girls about safe &
hygienic menstrual health practices including audio, video and reading
materials for adolescent girls and job-aids for ASHAs and other field level functionaries
for communicating with adolescent girls.
- ASHAs across the country are trained and play a significant role in promotion of use and distribution of the sanitary napkins.
- Department of Health Research, under the Ministry of Health, is involved in assessment of all newer, alternative, environment friendly menstrual hygiene products to look into their safety and acceptability features.
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