Teachers have a lasting impact on their students even outside of the school walls. Pushpa Aruna, a teacher at the Primary School at Chanehata village in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, has not just been influencing her students, but also their mothers towards a healthier life.

Anushka is a student of class eleven who once studied in Aruna’s class. The teacher goes house to house in the village along with her classmates, telling them about the use of sanitary napkins.

“I remember Pushpa Madam telling us about menstrual hygiene and I always went home and told my mother about what I had learnt that day. My mother was unaware about the use of sanitary pads,” Anushka said.

Aruna realised how many women in the village were unaware about sanitary pads and basic hygiene during menstruation. “They used cloth, which they rewashed and used again. They dried the washed soiled cloth in some damp dank corner, not in the sunlight, somewhere where others won’t see it. And, once they cannot possibly reuse that cloth anymore, they struggle to dispose of them,” the teacher said. 

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After school, Pushpa visited women in the villages and told them about menstrual hygiene and wellness. She realised how unhygienic practices were leading to infections and other health problems in them.

After school, Pushpa visited women in the villages and told them about menstrual hygiene and wellness. 

“Rare is a woman in a village who worries about her own well being. And, menstruation for her is associated with something shameful, to be hidden and talked about in whispers,” the teacher said.

She began by distributing pads to the village women, but soon realised that she could not continue doing that indefinitely. “The women do not have money to buy pads outside. So, I taught the women to make their own pads. This way they were in charge of their own menstrual health,” Aruna said. The women learnt to make sanitary pads with old cloth they had at home along with wads of cotton.

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Aruna had to face a lot of flak for her involvement in this mission of ‘periods’ talk in the village. “People made fun of me, ridiculed me and even criticised me, but I knew I had to do something for the health of the women,” she said.

Aruns also teaches the women and their daughters about ‘good touch’ and ‘bad touch’ to keep themselves safe. For her, being a teacher extends way beyond her classroom. “A teacher should make a contribution to society in other ways too,” she said.