Activities:
- Menstrual and sexual health program for girls at Shilla school. Donation of Luneras menstrual pads (donation KW) and Lunapads (donation from Canada). Teaching of how to make their own pads ("envelope"design). Beneficiaries: 250 girls and teens
- Participatory workshops with women on feminine wisdom and medicine including menstruation, birth, and menopause. Special attention will be given to recovering and strengthening women's ritual, ceremony, and songs. Participatory organization of a Rite of Passage ceremony for girls around Menarque pacha
- Community work with Shilla public health center (Ministry of Health) and local schools to bridge intercultural barries so that local Andean women and girls can be more respected based on their woman's wisdom and cultural practices
- Sharing with rural Andean midwives, in order to learn from them, celebrate them and revitalize the honor and respect for them in the community. Thanksgiving Ceremony
- Recovery of female medicinal plants: Organic community gardens, organic school garden, and home organic gardens with special attention to women's health herbs.
* If you want to donate for this project and/or volunteer please email: cynthiaingar@gmail.com
Intergenerational Healthy Woman Workshops (Menstrual Wisdom & Healthy practices)
12 women (3 teens) & 3 girls
Participatory workshop on menstrual cultural practices, menstrual storytelling, health practices, vaginal care, menstrual products & health, menarque rites of passage & importance of celebration and pre-menarque mother-daughter menstrual talk, the sacredness of our female blood, menstrual retreats ..
After the workshop,
8 Luneras kits were donated to menstruating women present, along with a class on how to use them & care for them
Shilla women & girls after the workshop with their blue Luneras!
And for snacks, Andean Corn tortillas!! My husband and I had the idea to have local & healthy snacks, so we taught local women & men to make tortillas (not know in Peru as in Mexico): we got all the ingredients, we needed only some inspiration from our Mexican sisters! thank you :)
Shilla friends just loved them (we prepared them with avocado, tomatoes, cheese, basil, and Sra Norma's Corn) and were excited to make them at home instead of buying white flour bread every day! (White bread has become a common staple in Peru, for breakfast and as a daily snack)
Healthy Woman Workshops in Shilla (Pregnancy & Childbirth)
Workshops on self-care during Pregnancy, giving an emphasis on the importance of nutrition for a healthy pregnancy & birth. Introduced women to the miracle medicinal plant of Ortiga (Stinging Nettle) to bring the necessary daily iron needs to pregnant and breastfeeding women.
The Birth workshops have included teaching women about their Reproductive Rights when they attend public health centers to give birth (including their right to have their husband and/or female labor partner at their birth, choosing freely birthing positions, etc). We navigated through the phisiology of birth, the importance of breathing during labor (especially during rushes or contractions), vertical positions and why laying down positions aren't good for the birthing woman & baby, caring actions for a labor companion to give to a birthing woman, the main needs of a birthing woman for a successful birth) and more ... Birth storytelling was encouraged and sharing of their embodied knowledge and Andean medicine knowledge.
Intergenerational Healthy Woman Workshop in Llipta community (Menstrual Wisdom & Healthy Practices) Saturday June 14th
12 women (between ages 15 - 20- 70)
Llipta is a community up from Shilla town, that in some aspects guards more of the ancestral Andean ways of leaving than pueblos (towns) or communities closer to the local urban center (Carhuaz town). Women here (including younger women) were especially open to reclaiming back the local Andean and woman-centered practices and knowledge around women's health and Medicine - the Woman Medicine of their Grandmothers.
Grandmothers present in the circle sharing remembered the local menstrual self-care practices widespread in their community, where women cared more for themselves during menstruation within Andean female tradition, knowing that they were on a "special" time that required special self-care practices, as with post-partum retreats. They also shared the past use of reusable cloth pads for menstruation, changing in this generation with commercial disposable pads. They associated the "modern" spread in the local area of female reproductive problems to not caring for themselves as before around their Killa (moontime) and using disposable products made of chemicals.
Llipta women with their Lunapads bases & Luneras liners (inserts) on day 2 of the workshop (Sunday 15th) on how to use their reusable pads, on the day of the Women's Center celebration, at the center's site!
* Individual Advisory & Consultations (menstrual issues, fertility, pregnancy & breastfeeding)
Menstrual Education Classes at Community School of Shilla (see next post)
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