Girls eagerly respond to physical health related questions
"Now I will discuss menstruation. Is it a matter of shame?"
The crowd replied loudly in unison: "No...!"
"It is as simple as our regular activities. How many of you have experienced this?"
Most girls at the Mohammadpur Preparatory Girls School and College playground, unhesitatingly raised their hands. Some girls even came on stage to express whatever they knew about menstruation.
"In our superstitious villages, there are people who believe a period is not a natural thing. They think it is an outcome influenced by ghosts," said host, Dr Sakia Haque.
A student asked Dr. Sakia: "How did you handle menstruation on your journey?"
Sakia replied: "I had to find a washroom but I couldn't find a nearby dustbin for disposal. I rolled the sanitary pad in paper and when I found a dustbin I disposed it there. We need dustbins for our menstruation waste."
arly, girls in Bangladesh are quite aware and conscious about their physical health education.
Four girls travelled through all 64 districts of the country on two motorcycles in two years. Two of the girls also joined the Public Service Commission cadre in the course of their travels across the Bangladesh countryside.
At the close of their national motorcycle travel project, sponsored by Karnaphuli Motors in Dhaka, Mohammadpur Preparatory school in Dhaka was the last stop on their list.
In every district our travel girls visited at least one school to raise consciousness among girls about the liberation war, tourism, child marriage, physical health during adolescence, and personal security. Travel girls Dr. Sakia Haque and Dr. Manoshi Saha studied at Dhaka Medical College. Silvy Rahman and Muntaha Rumman Aurthy studied at Dhaka University and Jahangirnagar University respectively.
With a motto of 'Empower women through traveling,' Travelettes of Bangladesh is not just any ordinary online travel group; it's a platform of around 24,000 Bangladeshi girls. It promotes the empowerment of women by telling them and teaching them to speak up and speak out, to go out of their homes and see the beauty of the country with their own eyes.
The travel girls were warmly welcomed in the countryside except in a few places.
Silvy Rahman who completed her post graduation from the Philosophy department of DU, told the Dhaka Tribune: "We were welcomed warmly in every area of the country except for some conservative communities. In a Noakhali village, a school teacher tried discouraging his students in learning from us."
"In Kurigram, we visited a school in a river Char area where children of 40 riverside schools gathered. There we saw child marriage was booming. We tried to raise their consciousness about the issue," Silvy added.
Search for historical heritage and tradition
Talking about their journey through the countryside, Dr. Sakia Haque said: "Our aim was to see the country, as well as to raise the awareness of school going girls. But there was another intrinsic motive: to establish that women can travel the country on motorbikes. So we went to the districts, visited places of tourist interest, learned new things. Each district will be remembered separately for special reasons.”
Night of hazard
Travelling to Laxmipur from Bhola's Char Fashan was one of the most thrilling experiences of our life. Cyclone Titli was raining cats and dogs. At the end of the school workshop, being slow after lunch, it was very difficult to catch the ferry. We missed the ferry by just two minutes in heavy rain fall. We never gave up, and waited for two hours at Ilish ferry Ghat. After two hours we got the Camellia ferry where we four were the only women.
Miscellaneous
Sometimes the women faced amusing situations such as local people asking how women could ride motorbikes. A number of times they got flat tires, interrupting their travel. One day they spent four hours coping with that problem.