September 11th, 2025, 1pm MDT
A seasonal initiative sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Light the Light The World The World Giving Machine Stations helps bring education, menstrual kits and confidence to girls and women in Nepal’s communities.
Donations given to Girls International Days through the Red Vending Machine Initiative support efforts to eliminate menstrual stigma and improve health, education and economic opportunities for women and girls.
Donations through the Giving Machine initiative provide resources and education to women in Nepali “facing troubling traditions,” the video reports. In western Nepal, girls are often sent away from home for several days each month, part of a tradition that affects millions of women around the world.
Faced with harmful traditions
A young woman in Nepal said in a video of her first period. She turned to her grandmother. My grandmother said there was nothing to worry about, but she said she couldn’t come home until the cycle was over. Instead, she had to be outside because “the god and the goddess would be angry,” and she was considered “immaculate” during her menstruation.
Her experience is not uncommon in western Nepal, where many women and girls face practice called “Chaupadi”. Despite the laws against it, menstrual women are often considered impurities, protected from their families and required to live in small sheds.
Another young woman, Jayanti Ayer, said, “We are not allowed to enter the house. They force us to stay outside, get food separately and not touch for six days.” She said that while the girl’s isolated time is 10-12 days, others need to separate herself for 22 days.
In Nepal, established traditions, stigma and limited resources made schooling difficult for many girls. Some people stop going to school, said Rekha Buddha Khūtri.
“Girls menstruate for three,000 days in their lifetime,” said Tiffany Larson, CEO of Days for Girls. “If they can’t get fully involved in the meantime, that’s a problem. They’re needed by their families, their communities, their world.”
Education and supplies bring about change
Larson also said 25% of women around the world do not need a menstrual supply. In addition to menstrual classes, we also provide reusable pads to the kit by giving machine donations.
Maya Kahitu, country director at Days for Girls Nepal, travels around the country to educate women and girls on their menstrual cycles and distributes these reusable pad kits.
“If we educate them and… the products they need, that’s a huge difference,” Kahitu said.
The young woman, Pavitra Jaishi, has already seen these changes happen in her own family.
“They won’t let us stay outside anymore,” she said in the video. “There have been a lot of changes recently, even at home.”
A young woman, who previously terrified of her duration and the stigma surrounding it, says she is “prideful to be a woman” as the program and supply were made possible daily for the donations of girls and gift machines.
