Cleanliness
vs Confidence was the topic of our meeting last Saturday.
We
had each group discourse the topic privately and elect one person to speak in
behalf of the group.
Each
group was then asked to act out a real or imagined scenario of how cleanliness
relates to confidence and how it all connects to women empowerment.
After
the group discussions and presentations, we reached these conclusions:
A
woman who maintains a good personal hygiene is more confident and may be more
eager to speak out when being abused;
She
is not likely to feel vulnerable or timid and may not think of it as a favor
when people who ‘seem’ well off than are her friends;
She
will be more eager to participate in public discussions, answer questions in
public and converse freely with people;
She
thinks highly of herself and may get along with others without much difficulty.
We
then moved on to some of the reasons why women maintain poor personal hygiene.
Poverty,
illiteracy and ignorance were on top of the list – most inhabitants of this
community are very poor, barely able to feed and afford clothing. Women
especially the young ones are the lowest in the order of preference when it
comes to hygiene.
Some
participants said they use newspapers and pieces of clothe as sanitary towels.
Some of them thought nothing about it while others said they cannot afford
tissue papers or sanitary pads. They also talked about wearing a piece of
underwear for as long as 4 days because they had no money to afford new ones.
One
participant told me after the group dispersed that whenever they could afford
to buy some toothpaste or bathing soap; her parents often keep them out of
reach, stating that they (the parents) are the ones that need them. She then
said that sometimes when she tries to converse with her classmates in school,
they make fun of her bad breath. This has made her withdrawn.
We
all took time to talk about things that makes us feel confident as a woman.
Some
of us said we feel confident as a woman when our hair is made, our clothes are
well arranged and our shoes are in good condition.
Some
others said they feel confident when their underwear is clean and in good
condition.
Lastly,
few said they feel really confident when they are sure of what they have to say.
We
closed the meeting with Affirmation of Self.
We
are already discussing with organizations and individuals who have indicated
interest in meeting the needs of some of the young women in this community.
