Jesselina Rana on Driving Policy to the Margins: Advocating for Dignified Periods in Nepal

Sonia: Namaste and welcome to Pods by PEI, a policy discussion series brought to you by Policy Entrepreneurs, Inc. My name is Sonia Jimmy.  In today's episode, we have PEI colleague Khushi Hang in conversation with Jesselina Rana on driving policy to the margins, advocating for dignified periods. Jaisalina Rana is a human rights lawyer, social entrepreneur, and feminist activist.

A Harvard Law School graduate, Jaisalina co founded Pat2Go, a social enterprise focusing on menstrual health in Nepal, in 2018. Since its inception, Pat2Go has garnered national and international recognition for its impactful contributions to women's health. To the menstrual health landscape in Nepal,  Lina's passion for feminism, human rights, and the law has driven her to contribute to both human rights and political legal discourse in Nepal and internationally.

In this episode, Khushi and Jesselina discuss the challenges in pursuing policy solutions to issues of access to a dignified period, a topic shrouded in stigma and taboo. Jesselina shares the unexpected hurdles in seeking policy attention for the marginalized issue of menstruation and the importance of strategy, advocacy, and sustainability in it.

They explore barriers to accessing menstrual health care. and dignity. They're deep impacts and recount national issues like the period tax and the state of periods in prison. They also discuss the evolution of a dignified period in the realm of human rights, the different ways it has expanded and how the conversation can be taken forward.

Just a heads up, this episode is a remote recording, which is why the audio quality might not be what you're used to at parts. Regardless, we hope you enjoy the conversation.

Khushi: Namaste, my name is Khushi Hang.

Jesselina: Namaste, my name is Jesselina Rana.

Khushi: Welcome to the show, Jesselina. How are you doing today? How's New York?

Jesselina: Thank you so much for having me, Khushi. It's late, but I'm super excited to be here with you and just get the conversation rolling. Thank you so much once again.

Khushi: I know, right? Thank you so much for joining us all the way from the other side of the world, especially for agreeing to this remote recording despite the jarring time difference.

I know it's pretty late right now, but hopefully, as our conversation builds in, we will reel you in. So today we're talking about how policy can be pursued for issues that are highly stigmatized and taboo, and particularly we're looking at the case of women's right to a dignified period. Jesselina, you're an avid feminist and you have carried this ethos of feminism throughout your career as a human rights lawyer and as a social entrepreneur.

Access to dignified menstruation was the main goal of your social enterprise, Pad To Go. And before we delve into the specifics of this project, let's start by rewinding a little and understanding the why behind your movement. For that, I think it would be a good place for us to start by sharing the landscape of reproductive rights. What was it like when you first started?

And when I'm talking about the landscape, it's not just the conversations surrounding periods within the general public, but also in the arenas of civil society and rights-based circles.

Jesselina: Thank you so much, Khushi. You're someone who's always been so supportive of Pad To Go. We see you on our social media all the time. Thank you for that, and secondly, for having me. You know, when I reflect back on Pad To Go's journey, it's so interesting because we started about five years ago. In fact, we celebrated our fifth anniversary in 2023, and we're running into our sixth year now. Shubhangi and I are both turning 28 and 29, respectively, this year.

I was actually turning 23 when we first got our vending machines and started to develop ideas around it. Reflecting back, I think there was so much going on within the country, and it was a great time for innovative initiatives to come through. I say that mostly because there have been so many other younger organizations that somehow started at the same time as us and are flourishing now as well. This was back in 2018, a year after the first federal level election. That was a time when the government was still trying to figure out what their priorities should be and what policies they needed to take forward.

Civil society organizations have always been there, and I think that's one of their strengths. Governments change, but civil society organizations and civil society remain and act like an institution. We definitely leveraged that to take forward our mission. Civil society organizations were doing a lot of great work, even in 2018. When Shubhangi and I started Pad To Go, we were obviously a very small organization and still are. One of our key messages was that collaboration is key. We started out without access to the links that we have formed over these five years, and it was organizations already working in the sector that really helped us and took our mission forward.

When we went to schools, especially in more remote parts of Nepal, we witnessed some of the great work they were already doing. This has created a great base for the government to take best practices from, learn from, and model policies after. When we started in 2018, even if the government was still lagging behind, many organizations had already taken that big leap of faith and had been doing a lot of great work.

Khushi: Did any of these civil society works touch on menstruation during that time?

Jesselina: Yes. In fact, they looked at menstruation very holistically. Many organizations we worked with viewed menstruation from a WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) perspective. A lot of the projects they were undertaking in schools and college campuses were through WASH clubs that got students talking about and involving themselves in these issues. It was interesting because they were able to look at it holistically, not just focusing on menstruation but also considering the water, sanitation, and health aspects.

Khushi: Yeah, I think that's really interesting. And, as you've answered this, can you explain how the idea or the topic of enabling a dignified period became a topic of focus in the discourse of human rights? How did it evolve, not just in Nepal, but even in the global landscape?

Jesselina: I think that's such an interesting question because when we go back and look at texts, especially international legal texts, my perspective as a lawyer has always been to look into the documents, examine the legal aspects of what formulates conversation, and what also codifies conversation.

And I think that's how I approach law, especially international and human rights law. Whatever is coming in the law are conversations that are already happening on the ground, but these are also conversations that need to be solidified through a text. It's very interesting because if you look at the international sphere before coming to the domestic sphere, in the human rights international legal context, we've had some pretty groundbreaking documents that have talked about gender rights and women's rights. CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, came about 40 years ago.

The UDHR, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, came about 70 years ago. But what's interesting is that none of them speak of menstruation explicitly. In fact, it was only in 2022 that the Human Rights Council addressed menstruation and even said this is the first time we're addressing menstruation.

My thought when I started looking into this and researching it, you know, the WHO came out with a statement and that was very interesting to read right after or right before the Human Rights Council statement. In conjunction with the Human Rights Council statement, it was very interesting because in international law, the laws that get adopted are laws that states adopt.

These are consensus documents between states. A lot of the times the lobbying and the adoption, unfortunately, or the drafting, unfortunately, take place from a very Eurocentric lens. Something that we've noticed in the legal frame, in the international legal framework, is that there are provisions where you could read menstruation into, like, gender rights, right to work, right to education, right to health.

These are all provisions in the text where you can read menstruation in. But the problem was that menstruation in the West or in the Global North is very different from the experiences of menstruation in the Global South. And it's interesting because conversations on menstruation and the challenges of menstruation in the Global North stem from or are intrinsically related to concepts of period poverty, not having access, taxation, and all things which are perhaps more economic in nature.

But conversations on menstruation in the Global South may be related to access, may touch upon access, may start from access, but the challenges go beyond just access. Many people who hopefully will be listening to us can relate to this when I say that it's not just economic.

Yes, it is economic, but it's also caste, class, gender, race, disability. It's so many things that are packed together. These intersectional identities form our experiences in addition to access to mental health. So when we look at the international legal framework, unfortunately, menstruation has never been addressed.

When WHO came out with their statement in 2022, as well as the Human Rights Council, something that they particularly acknowledged and for which I'm very grateful is that a lot of these conversations have been pushed by Global South activists and young activists who have been raising this topic on menstruation, grassroots activists, especially from the Global South, because it is a perspective that is missing in the Global North and needs to be taken forward in a collective Global South solidarity. I think it's very interesting that in the international legal framework, menstruation has been completely ignored or overlooked.

We're forced to read it into provisions through legal innovation rather than have the word there for us to implement.

Khushi: Those are some amazing insights. So Jesselina, having said all that, what does a dignified period mean to you as a researcher and an activist?

Jesselina: A dignified period or dignity, you know, that's where I start a definition for myself. And this is something that Pad To Go believes in as well. Dignity is so subjective; what dignity means for me might not mean what dignity means for you. That's something that Pad To Go realized when we were doing our research, talking to people of different castes, classes, creeds, and religions across Nepal.

We also had conversations with South Asian activists from eight South Asian countries, and we realized that a dignified period for us, for Pad To Go, definitely focuses on access to menstrual products, equitable access to menstrual products. But like I said, it's so much more beyond that, right?

It's having access to sanitation, having access to facilities, making sure that the government is able to bring down the barriers. I look at it again from a very legal point of view. Positive rights and negative rights. It's for the government not just to not offend our rights, but also to give certain rights.

These are some things, for example, the tax on period products, which we have been lobbying to remove. The menstrual leave that is in conversation these days. These are things that we talk about. I guess I would say a dignified period is so subjective, but we definitely start from an access point of view: access to products, access to facilities, access to respect.

While you are on your period, access to all forms of respect for managing your mental health is what I would say starts the conversation on a dignified period.

Khushi: Looking around, though, we have to say that the conversation around menstruation has really expanded, right? There are so many new nuances. Can you maybe list some of the ways in which you've seen the conversation surrounding periods expand?

Jesselina: So, when we started Matricle, one of the things that we usually wanted to focus on was innovation: innovate the way in which we have conversations, but also innovate the way in which we drive change. That has been the building block of Pad to Go. That's where we started, providing vending machines to schools.

I think one of the things that we've really seen in these past five years is one expansion of the modes of how you're having these conversations around menstruation. Social media has played such a great role in bringing these conversations to, you know, the forefront. Using different modes of social media, whether it's podcasts, whether it's, you know, going around asking people questions on the streets and having that on TikTok or Instagram, these are all ways in which the conversation around menstruation is expanding in terms of the mode.

But also the conversation itself is expanding. We're talking about disability and menstruation. We're talking about trans men and menstruation. Very recently,  a few years ago, actually not recent, a few years ago, Pad to Go did a month of inclusive menstruation. We had conversations with people with disabilities, both intellectual as well as physical disabilities, and how that impacts their periods.

We talked with women from the Dalit community and what it means to be one, treated unfortunately like an untouchable person, but also when you're on your periods, what does that sort of double untouchability mean for you? We talked with transgender men who were so sympathetic to the cause because they have been left out of these conversations.

When we started these conversations with trans men, I think one of the things that really hit me was that the platform has not been there for trans men, non-binary people, or queer people to talk about menstruation from their own personal experiences. For the longest time, we've used this term, women and girls, women and girls, women and girls, but that's not the only aspect of what it means to advocate for gender rights, right?

Sometimes in Nepal, even within the rights-based sector, we use gender as a synonym for women or girls, and I think we need to look beyond that. In these ways, there has definitely been an expansion of the conversation, both in terms of its mode and its content.

Khushi: Yeah, and I think it's truly amazing to see how the conversation has grown to include more groups who have been facing the same difficulties surrounding this issue.

Moving forward, let's talk about the current status of periods, especially pertaining to Nepal. By now, I think most of us know the exclusionary effects of period stigma. We have extensive coverage on Thaupadi, on the low attendance and high dropout rates of girls or, maybe I should say, menstruating individuals.

Your research, however, has discovered impacts that go deeper than what meets statistics and that are more long-term. Can you maybe share some of the ways in which the taboo of periods has detrimental effects on menstruators?

Jesselina: Thank you, Khushi, for this question. Definitely, as you said, there has been extensive coverage of Thaupadi Pratha, so much so that sometimes when you're talking about periods in Nepal, and when you're having these conversations with people from the West, the only association they have is with menstrual huts. That's another point of conversation that I've interestingly had with a lot of people, even with activists here, to say that, you know, that's a big challenge for women, especially in certain parts of the country. But that's not a challenge for all women or all menstruating people across the country. Challenges differ, and everyone has their own sort of challenges, and we need to address all of them together.

Someone said during one of our conversations in Nepal, "we brought down the huts, but when are we going to bring down the barriers within our own minds?" That really piqued my interest because what has been going on is generational. The consequences are, at times, so subconscious that we overlook the impact.

Something that we've had to unlearn at home, especially in certain homes in Kathmandu, is the use of the term "mahinavari," which translates to a state of being untouchable. For the longest time, I used this word without thinking about its consequences because my mother and grandmothers used this word, so no one at home questioned it.

The detrimental impact when we talk about menstruators, yes, there are extreme cases of death. There are also cases where we forget to unlearn these generational biases, these unfortunate norms that we've established within households that impact how we view ourselves, how we view dignity, and how we view our menstruation.

At Pad to Go, when we did our research, we found that especially when girls have higher dropout rates in places where there's no access to pads in school, where there's no access to sanitary facilities in school, they end up doing a lot of the household chores. The dropout rate is higher from school, and they don't have the educational background to get a formal job in the formal market. At times, because their income is not as much as their partner's income, their decision-making level at the household is also affected.

We're also leaving out boys from this conversation on menstruation. When they grow up to be men, taking decisions, they are unaware of the implications of menstruation beyond just the physical implications, and at times even unaware of the physical implications. I think the detrimental effect that the lack of conversation has on the lives of menstruators is something that still needs to be talked about more, still needs to be delved into more. I definitely think that a lot of organizations are working on this, and hopefully, the next generation sees a better light.

Khushi: Previously, when we were talking about what a dignified period means to you, you suggested adopting an access-based approach. Let's talk about access briefly.

You and your team ran a campaign highlighting the luxury tax on period products in Nepal, where you set up these pad dispensaries in various public places. Can you share the modality of this? How did this work for the listeners to know? And also, in the years of observation, how did you see this accessibility creating a change?

Jesselina: The government came out with their policy on providing free pads to schools only in about 2019 or 2020. It was the budget between these two English years. For us, it was very interesting because before that, we'd already started our work in 2018. So we'd done a year of our campaigning.

We put up machines in different parts of schools across the country, most of which are outside of Kathmandu Valley. A very limited portion of our machines are inside the valley. We really appreciated the positive response that we got, especially from schools and organizations who helped take these machines across the country.

Of course, the pad machine focuses on access. But one of the unintended benefits that we also saw was that after the government decided to provide free pads to schools, the machine acted as an access point and a transparency point. We did see certain schools where the distribution system hadn't been as clear as it should have been, but having these vending machines in the bathrooms of these students gave them the knowledge to demand pads when the pads would finish in the vending machine. That's one of the unintended positive benefits that we've seen, the transparency mechanism and model that comes out.

Going to the luxury tax aspect of it, I think this particularly adopted in 2020 during the lockdown, we were doing a lot of online campaigns and online conversations. We had the period talk with eight different activists from eight different South Asian countries. We welcomed their perspectives and the challenges each of them were facing in their own countries with their work. Something that came about was that the Maldives had taken out the tax on period products. India had taken out the tax on period products, and Bhutan was having these conversations in their parliament about the tax on period products.

We realized that we have a small legal team. We realized that, wait, we have a VAT Act. We have provisions in the VAT Act, which say that essential goods should not be taxed, and there are things like art, condoms, and things like this which don't have VAT on them. We were so surprised. One, we were surprised that no one was talking about it, but second, we were surprised there's already a provision to remove it. We don't have to do the lobbying to create a law. There's already a law that would give us what we wanted. We did calculations based on how much a menstruating individual is spending extra as a result of VAT, as a result of having to spend on period products. A bunch of other research done by medical journals in Nepal and our calculation acted as a base for them to explore this even more.

We started doing campaigns. We started training young people. We started collaborating with young organizations. We started doing peaceful protests and demonstrations. It caught up across the country. We lobbied with the government. The government changed. We lobbied with the next government. They called us. There was a lot of talk, and they did actually address a small portion of what we wanted, but not everything we wanted. So it wasn't a complete win, but we're going to take the win as we get it. We're going to be lobbying more in the coming days and check if there is implementation or not of the policy.

Khushi: Yeah, I think even when I came across the Raatokar Maafkar campaign, as you called it, even I was shocked to know about the fact that there's a luxury tax on period products and the fact that we didn't know about it. And I think that is, that again goes back to the very first segment of this conversation where we talked about the beauty of CSOs and the necessity of active citizens.

Adding to that, a very intriguing new venture for you has been advocating for a period in prison. One would assume that an institution, not to mention one that's run by the state, would have, you know, covered the basic needs of the individuals it houses, but according to your research, we have found otherwise, especially when it comes to the reproductive rights of inmates.

You've done a pilot research on the inmates and their surrounding, their period needs and access to products. What were the different findings?

Jesselina: This was such an interesting project for us, and it's still an ongoing project, and we're so happy to be taking it forward because, like I said, dignified menstruation means very different for very different people, and we want to be able to understand what the needs are of menstruating people in the current scenario, in the current political context, and in the current legal context.

So we wanted to first look at the legal aspects of what's going on in our country. What are the policies? Are there even policies surrounding this, right? And when we did our research in 2023, we found out that in late 2022, a law had been passed in Parliament, which on paper looks amazing when you read it and when you, you know, put it across the international laws or the Bangkok rules, which are the sort of standard point of rules or laws for women in prisons, you realize that it's not very different.

It has. The law adopted in Nepal is pretty progressive, and it in fact states very clearly that, the administrative staff in the prisons would provide free menstrual sanitary pads for women in prison. And we thought, wow, this is such a great point to start off from. But. As you may know, the implementation in Nepal is not the best.

So we did our small pilot research in Pokhara, in the jail of Pokhara, and we found many interesting results and many interesting findings. And one of the findings that we found out was that a lot of women are buying packets of pads from the commissary, or from the commissary there, and they have to spend their own money, which is The state does give them a small amount to buy certain personal belongings, but when a packet of pad cost as much as it does with still the luxury tax or the VAT on it, and you have to buy an entire packet in a day, it could take away from a large budget of which you want to allocate for other things, for other personal necessities.

So we thought it would be very interesting to put a vending machine Pad to go vending machine there in collaboration with an organization and look at the impact. We also worked very closely with the jail staff and who was able to raise funds for that. For ongoing was able to raise funds to make sure that there are pads in the machine at all times that.

The, the impact or the response has been very positive because what women are able to do now is buy one back one pad instead of one entire packet when they need it, or two pads or three pads instead of an entire packet of seven or ten that's right. Um, but it's interesting because that's one of the findings in our book, Roger.

But in fact, we went to the NOAA court jail very recently, in fact, a day ago, and we wanted to assess the, the implication of mental health and women's, women's lives in the prison there. And we realized that there, women were getting access to pads. They were getting a packet a month, and they had this access to pads.

And it was interesting because that might be a, that we still need to do more research, but we want to see what the best practices are in certain jails, which might not be in other jails and sort of try to standardize practice and make sure that the law that is there should be implemented. But the interesting aspect is when we talk to the jail staff and we talk to people in the prisons, we were like, you know, there's a law that states that you should be getting free pads.

You shouldn't even be having to buy pads at all. And they were like, okay, we did not, we were not aware of this. So I think for us, the importance of making sure that people are also aware of the laws that directly impact them is also another stage of this conversation that we want to focus on. And it's, it's, it's a great project and we're very excited to make sure that prisons across the country have standardized approaches to making sure that the law that is there of free access to sanitary pads is implemented.

Khushi: And I think, it's really interesting that through this project, we're able to imagine human rights in prisons because prisons, given our ideas of retributive justice, we wish that people are in the, least comfortable positions as possible, but it's also about their basic human rights. And I think this project really reemphasizes that and I love it.

Something that I wanted to focus on a very small tangent is the fact that the vending machines do not Disperse each individual pad really, is this just the mechanism of your business or do you have like a different expectation out of it? Does it have something to do with sort of giving them that authority and agency as a consumer?

Jesselina: That's a very interesting question that I'm so glad to be able to clarify it. So Pad to go is a for-profit business. But we are a social enterprise. We don't have equity stakes and we don't take profit. Everyone is paid like an employee. Our employees are paid like employees and, only the investment that was initially there that Shivangi and I made, we took back.

But all the profit that comes into the company is reinvested into the company. Having said that, we don't make a profit from pads. We don't sell pads. We don't make profit from pads. Our main product is the vending machine and we give this sort of decision to the institution buying the machine or the institution where the machine is placed to decide how they want to take forward the vending out of pads.

So it's cool. A lot of the times they have, especially now that the government has given free pads, you don't need to put money. We use tokens. So it's. It's an informal way to receive the pads with tokens, which act like money, but you're not really paying money. So, like I mentioned, it's a transparency model for pads that are already free in schools.

And the distribution mechanism becomes, the distribution mechanism becomes easier. But there are places where, for example, hospitals, And workplaces where workplaces are able to put in a small amount or a small fee for the pads that they, for pads that people are vending out. And like you said, it's also a way to make sure that there's ownership.

If there is a small, you know, if the machine requires some form of improvement. You're able to use the money for that. But having said that, we usually do emphasize, especially with larger organizations who do have the funds to make sure that the pads are given. So I think that our machine really works well because we don't operate on a monetary basis.

We operate on a machine coin basis. So it's really up to the institution to decide whether they want to put in a small amount for the pad, or they want to give it away for free and make sure that the vending machine only acts as a transparency mechanism. Having said that, we also provide, lifelong collaboration with pad.

Manufacturers, both Nepali and, imported pads, and that's as per the consumer's choice once again, to decide if they want pads at a less than market rate. So we want to provide them pads at a much less market rate, so that even if they are using Pad to go machines and they want pads, to use pads, but they want to make it to a small monetary amount.

They want to impose on it. It's still much less than what they would have to buy it from the market. So we are trying to make it as flexible as possible for them. And, you know, hopefully one day it's accessible for everyone.

Khushi: I think there's a really interesting aspect of innovation to whatever you do, and you've said this before, that you are eager to invite innovation in this pursuit.

So moving forward with the conversation, I want to particularly talk about this because introducing and directing agendas in the policy sphere is really important. It's already a challenging task. On top of that, the agenda that you sought to set was one drenched in stigma. So what was this process like?

How accessible is the policy sphere or the decision-making spaces for mobilizations like yours? And what were some of the unexpected hindrances in the beginning and perhaps even now as you push your agenda forward?

Jesselina: So, the policy space is always daunting and I see this as someone who's been in the space who, you know, I, I, focused my education on law, on policy, on politics, and the conversations around it.

And it's always daunting. It's daunting for me. And, you know, it's always, an uphill challenge, but I think with especially younger policymakers and politicians coming into the space who are more accessible through social media, who are more accessible to younger people and the younger generation, I think that, That gap is being bridged.

But just looking at it in terms of Pad to go's journey, I think what was really encouraging was to see certain organizations and certain, like even UN agencies really push for younger people to be at the conversation and make sure that young people have that platform or have that chair at the table and not, you know, wait to comment on the conversations that are already happening.

So when we started the Raatukar Maafkar, I think it's, it really started out as a collaborative project. Like I mentioned before, Pad to go is a very small organization and we wanted to acknowledge our limited capacity. Having said that, you know, we trained young ambassadors, college ambassadors on how to do advocacy, on ways to spread the information.

We collaborated and made loose networks to Mobilize other organizations. We talked with different organizations who were grassroots and could, you know, conduct peaceful protests and rallies and all of this, all of this together caught the government's eye and all of this together, push the government for to call us and have a conversation with us.

But before that, it was interesting because another. Unprecedented challenges that we had to go through was that there was a change in the government. We were lobbying with one government. Overnight, the government changed. So all that we were doing in the past, we had to start from ground up. So it really helped in that sense that we had, media coverage.

We had people who were archiving this, who were photographing this, who were making videos out of the social media content out of it. That really helped to re push the entire agenda to the new government. So I think that was An unprecedented challenge that we didn't even imagine would happen. Right. But having said that, I think it.

Really helps that we, one, get the conversation started, but also be strategic in how we want to take the conversation forward, be strategic in the types of organizations we partner up with, use our, use our points of advantage, which is social media, which is having conversations with young people and really rising up to the challenge.

So I think. A lot of it was a collaborative effort, and we really believe in the value of that, and even with our coming project, we hope to be more collaborative every time we're trying to do something new, and it really, really put the agenda on the map, because we wanted to make sure it was a collaborative effort.

The agenda that we were focused on Pad to go was not there to claim limelight. We were not there to make a name and, you know, garner press. We were there for the cause. And we are here even now for the cause. You know, we got a small, government. Acknowledgement in the national budget, but we're not, we're not there where we want to be.

And even as we move forward with more policy changes, we want to be able to make sure that this is really a collaborative effort. Because if I remember the saying that, you know, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. So we really want to go far and we want to go together.

And, and I usually hope we're able to get the results we want.

Khushi: As we're talking about this, something that comes to my mind is, okay, policy making is one thing, but actual implementation and bringing about social change also has a very tangible side to it. You've mentioned earlier that the conversation surrounding menstruation has always intersected with wash or water sanitation and hygiene, and simply put, creating conditions for a dignified menstruation requires infrastructures that are Like clean water or transportation links, but waiting for them might delay the delivery of women's rights and urgent needs, right?

So how have you been able to bridge this gap between the lack of infrastructure and the need to deliver to women?

Jesselina: Definitely, I think what you're seeing, you know, it's, it's a looming thought over our heads every day, you know, because One of the conversations, and I want to acknowledge this because this is an issue we're constantly grappling with, is what a fad disposal, right?

What about facilities that require, are required by menstruating individuals to make sure that our experience is dignified, is holistic, and that all needs are looked into. That is definitely a looming thought over. Over Pad to go over, you know, all other activists who are in the field in our, in our minds.

And again, I would like to acknowledge in this group really benefited from a collaborative work process when we go to schools in remote Nepal, or even in Kathmandu, you know, even in schools in Kathmandu, when we've placed these vending machines, one of the concerns, I remember one time a school in Kathmandu raised was, Well, we don't have dust bits inside the bathroom.

What's the point of putting these? vending machines and ensuring access to pads because it's going to dirty the bathroom. And I said, well, why don't we put a dustbin in the bathroom then? That would solve the issue, right? But it's, I mean, every time it's not as black and white, it's not easy as that.

There's so much bureaucracy. There's so many other conversations to have around disposal of pads, around access to pads. And like you said, the conversation needs to go hand in hand. Sometimes it doesn't. But we want to push that conversation hand in hand, so even though, even when we go to school, then we Place the vending machines.

We talk about taboos because it's not just about making sure you have access to pads It's also making sure that one you know how to wear pads And that's something that we realized had not happened like there were distribution of pads in a certain school And we were going placing the vending machine to increase transparency and access of these pads that the government had given But there's lack of formal education and at home education on menstruation.

Students do not know how to put on pads, and we had completely overlooked that. We just took it for granted that people do know how to do this. So every time now that we do trainings, we also teach students, both boys and girls, how to wear a pad. How are pads worn? How are they supposed to, supposed to be disposed of?

And this is some of the conversations we want to push, even when we're putting up the machines. We want to talk about facilities. We want to talk about water access. We want to make sure that it's benefiting the students and not just the teachers. And one of the schools in, in Dhading, they wanted to put it inside the teacher's lounge. I said, well, that's not, that's not going to support access in any way. Students are going to have a big problem coming to the teacher's lounge. And sometimes they're not even allowed inside the teacher's lounge, right? So like you said, There are so many factors that go in to making your water, sanitation, health experience the perfect experience, but we need to start somewhere and we need to have the other conversations as we go as well.

Khushi: Definitely, definitely, Jesselina. And as we move forward with the conversation, I want to recall that last year, the theme of the menstrual hygiene day was making menstruation a normal fact of life by 2030. It's, it's a, it's a known fact that despite being a natural and necessary phenomenon, our periods are often only voiced in hushes and whispers.

And although the mission looks simple, it is truly hard to overcome the internalized stigma and the structural norms that have existed for so long. So how do you think, can we imagine ways to enable open conversations surrounding periods in both the public and private spheres of society?

Jesselina: I always go back to the basics when we're having conversations about normalizing something sortable. And my instant understanding is that family is the smallest unit of society. And conversations that we have at the family level have such a deep impact at the, at the public level. And what is personal is political and what is personal will eventually become public. And within the family structure, I believe there is an innate need for Nepali people to stop being ashamed of periods, to stop imposing restrictions on menstruating people as if it's a norm, even within households in Kathmandu, I've noticed In so many educated households, we imagine that, you know, all this, you know, restrictions is, is a limiting concept in the minds of certain people who may not have had education, who may not have had the opportunity to live in urban spaces.

But the unfortunate reality is even in the most educated and urban households of Kathmandu, there are women and menstruating people who are eating differently on their periods, who are eating on different plates. who are sleeping in different rooms, who are not sharing beds with their husbands during their menstruation.

And it has gone to the extent of normalization where we don't even question it within the household. And I think that's where we need to start. We need to start at the household level, but our conversations need to be structurally supported at the public level. By this I mean that the education system needs to do better, teachers need to do better, Policymakers need to do better.

We should shy away from having these conversations. And these conversations need not be limited to only women and girls. One, as we call it, we put the men in menstruation. Let's have conversations with young boys from a young age. Let's not segregate young boys and girls, right? Talking about this concept for the first time.

Let's bring fathers into the picture. Let's bring brothers into the picture. Let's teach people what it means to actually be open about it and stop being ashamed about it. And I think that's where we need to start to normalize it at the family level. But like I said, it needs to be supported structurally at the, at the public level through education.

Through the education system, by policy makers, by the government programs and policies, and I think with that, and now with the advance of technology, we have an actual way to make this as normal as possible.

Khushi: This is something many of my male co-workers and friends wanted to know. And I know we talk about boys and educating them, but what about, Men who've already crossed that phase of learning and are now here to support their menstruating counterparts.

How do you suggest they can be proactive allies in this?

Jesselina: That's such a great question, and I really hope I'm able to answer it and do justice to it. I can only speak for myself, but I think what I would appreciate from my male friends, my colleagues, my partner, my counterparts, is wanting to ask what a menstruating individual, a woman, might need, right?

 Is it another conversation on menstruation or is it just some time off? But no, having said that, I think that's a very nice way to sort of look at it. How do men or how do non-menstruating individuals be allies? And I think I read a quote very recently, and it was definitely not concerning allyship for menstruation, but it was allyship in general for social justice causes, and it really resonated with me and I'd want to highlight that and also acknowledge that this is not my quote and I read it and it just really resonated with me. Allyship should always be louder than the oppressor but quieter than the oppressed. And I think that's what true allyship means, that when you're advocating for something, you're louder than the oppressor, but you make sure to understand the lived experiences and voices and not to take up space in these conversations, but to support the conversation in these spaces. And I really think it also starts from doing away with normalized concepts, like, you know, when seeing things like, "Oh, she's moody today, maybe she's on her period," you know, that's emotion, human emotion is a natural expression. PMS is real, but that does not impact a woman or a menstruating individual's ability to lead, ability to function.

Different people have different needs, and I think that's one of the things that we want to highlight with the menstrual need policy that we want to advocate for is that Some people have very difficult periods and they might need time off, but some people don't have difficult periods and that's great. They don't need time off. Some people's PMS ranges from just craving chocolates to some people's PMS causing them a lot of anxiety. So I think it's so individual-specific, and being a true ally means just having this conversation very normally and Just asking the person what they need during that time, if they need something. But other than that, I think it's also to be well-educated and up-to-date with education.

You know, some, like you said, there are older men who want to be allies, but we also need to realize that some of the education that we've been given about menstruation hasn't been accurate. Especially if you look at the course books in Nepal, they provide very inaccurate and sometimes dangerous information on how to deal with menstruation. Right. So I think it's constantly being open to learning, but also unlearning, I think, would be a great way to show amnesia.

Khushi: Wow. I agree to every part of that answer.

And that's something that I would want to put out in the world as well. As we're coming to the end of this conversation, something that I really wanted to ask for my own personal place is what, who are some of your favorite creators and educators who are working on the awareness-building side of menstruation? Maybe you can recommend it to our listeners who want to learn more about the social and even the biological aspects.

Jesselina: Sure. I love that. I love that following menstrual educators and also looking at the different ways they're trying to express and bring these conversations, and I absolutely love it. So, within the Nepali space, I think Period Ka Kura, I think they're doing a great job in bringing these conversations into a podcast format. Untold Period Stories highlights a lot of stories that go untold or unnoticed, as you can understand from their name. So, these two are particularly, within the Nepali context.

Within the South Asian context, there's this person named Dr. Cutris on Instagram, and she brings a lot of informative content on menstruation, reproductive health, and it's really great to constantly watch her videos and learn more. And I think globally or more U. S. centered, I would say globally, more U. S. centered is this new page called Roe v. Wade. And this is this page that has come after Roe v. Wade was taken down in the U. S. So they go around asking young men about their perspectives and knowledge, more than perspective, their knowledge on menstruation, on abortion. And sort of educating them about what they're saying wrong a lot of the times. So I think these are some great starts to just enable your journey on learning more about menstruation and reproductive health of menstruating people.

Khushi: Yeah, I think I'll definitely be listening to the two podcasts. Before we bid goodbye, Jesselina, I wanted to ask what can we look forward to in the coming days for Pad to Go and how can the listeners get involved if they're enthusiastic?

Jesselina: We're very excited. Shubhangi and I both are very excited, especially because over the past five years, Pad to Go has had its own development and its own sort of identity growing. But at the same time, both Shubhangi and I have also tried to strengthen our own information, knowledge, capacity. We want to go far and we want to go together, and we want to really make sure that this is not a startup that comes and goes. It's a startup that is here to stay and we're constantly innovating whether conversation or products around menstruation and we really hope that. In the coming years, we're able to follow through some of the campaigns we're bringing forward. We're also able to innovate the conversation and document some of the progress that we've been doing and really build it into a bigger organization. I think one of the limitations we've had is that because it's been a smaller organization, even some of the bigger works that we want to do hasn't come through yet. Um, it's been slow, but I think we want to increase size. We want to increase capacity and Vishal and I individually really want to bring our strengthened capacities that we've sort of built over these five years into the organization. We're going to be announcing a summer fellowship program, so we did it in 2023, and it's going to be an annual process. It's going to be a two-month-long fellowship for college-level students to travel across Nepal to learn about menstrual advocacy and to just work with us and experience what it means to be a woman. I'm an advocate of mental health in Nepal.

Khushi: Thank you so much, Jesselina. It was so lovely talking to you.

Thank you so much for joining us at PODS.

Jesselina: Thank you, Khushi, and thank you not just on my behalf, but on behalf of the entire Pad to Go team for having us and for always being supportive, and I really hope we have more chances to collaborate with PEI as we move forward, and all the best for you as you go forward as well.

Sonia: Thanks for listening to Parts by PEI. I hope you enjoyed Khushi's conversation with Jesselina Rana on driving policy to the margins, advocating for dignified periods in Nepal. Today's episode was produced by Khushi Hung with support from Niranjan Rai, Sonia Jimmy, and Videsh Sabkota. The episode was recorded at PEI's studio and was edited by Videsh Sabkota and Niranjan Rai.

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