Skip to main content
HIMSHIKHARASocio-Cultural Society

Programme pillar

Women & Girls

Women and girls gain menstrual health knowledge, wellbeing support and skills that convert into household income.

HISCUS works with women and girls on the things that decide whether a month goes well or badly: whether menstruation is manageable, whether there is somewhere to take stress, and whether a skill can be turned into income. Sessions are run where participants already are: in wards, workplaces and community halls.

How this pillar is run

  • Sessions are requested by, and planned with, the local ward, school or community group.
  • Menstrual health education is paired with practical making, so participants leave with a product and a method, not only a talk.
  • Wellbeing and livelihood work run alongside each other rather than as separate projects.
Women and facilitators standing and seated together in a hall, holding printed booklets and learning materials
Participants and facilitators with session materials at an Empowering with Dignity workshop.

Reported figures

Ropeway Sadak, 13 June 2025
25 participants
Bethanchowk, 28 January 2025
18 women
Bhaktapur, 17 March 2025
20 participants

Activities

What runs under this pillar

  • Menstrual health education

    Group sessions covering menstrual health, hygiene and dignity, delivered through the Empowering with Dignity programme.

  • Reusable pad making

    Participants cut, stitch and take home reusable sanitary pads, and learn how to make more.

  • Psychosocial wellbeing and stress management

    Facilitated sessions giving participants practical tools for stress, alongside space to talk.

  • Livelihood and vocational skills

    Soap making, bangle making and compost production, chosen because they can be run from home with low start-up cost.

From this programme

Photographs from the work

  • A volunteer cutting pink fabric into reusable pad shapes on the floor of a hall while participants work nearby
    Cutting fabric for reusable sanitary pads during a making session.
  • Four people around a table cutting and pinning fabric pieces for reusable pads
    Preparing pad templates and fabric before a community session.
  • Two people wearing gloves holding freshly made bars of handmade soap
    Finished soap from a vocational skills session.
  • A participant crouching on the floor, stirring soap mixture in a blue container with a wooden stick
    Mixing soap base during a livelihood skills workshop.
  • A participant at a table holding a wrapped handmade product in front of a vocational training banner
    Packaging handmade products at a vocational training session.
  • A participant colouring a printed wellbeing worksheet during a group session
    A reflective exercise from a psychosocial wellbeing session.
  • Women seated in a circle with a facilitator during a group session inside a community workspace
    A group session held at participants' own workplace.

Projects

Projects in Women & Girls

  • A volunteer cutting pink fabric into reusable pad shapes on the floor of a hall while participants work nearby

    Recurring · Multiple wards and communities

    Empowering with Dignity

    Menstrual health education paired with reusable pad making, run as repeat sessions in the places participants already gather.

    Read the project

Stories

Reporting from this pillar

  • A volunteer cutting pink fabric into reusable pad shapes on the floor of a hall while participants work nearby

    Women & Girls

    Three sessions, sixty-three participants, one method

    Ropeway Sadak, Bethanchowk and Bhaktapur ran months apart in 2025. The format that connects them is deliberately unglamorous: talk, then make something.

    · Ropeway Sadak, Bethanchowk and Bhaktapur

    Read the story

Support Women & Girls

Partner on this pillar, fund a specific project, or propose local collaboration.

Partner with usContact HISCUS

Source for this programme: https://himshikharanepal.org.np/homepage/what-we-do/women-empowerment/