Three schoolgirls from Kolkata have been talking to teenage girls and women in North 24-Parganas district about menstrual hygiene and the need to be more open about it, and have also raised funds to provide them with sanitary pads.
The aim is to eradicate the stigma and prejudice attached to menstruation and simultaneously address “period poverty” by providing them with hygiene sanitary pads, said one of the founders.
Aishah Nafis, Shivangi Bagla and Aadya Agarwal, students of Class XII of Modern High School for Girls, started the initiative called Upahaar in December last year.
The girls have travelled to a couple of villages in North 24-Parganas district and collaborated with NGOs to distribute sanitary pads among women who have limited or no access to them.
“Not just in villages. Women in the city, too, look at menstruation with shame,” said Aishah.
Aishah said that unless women were able to believe that it was a natural biological process not to be ashamed of, the attitude of men towards it would not change.
“In one particular session at a village I realised that women believe they can be subjugated by men because they menstruate,” she said.
The girls in the last nine months have raised about Rs 30,000 and distributed 19,500 sanitary kits, which contained sanitary pads for one cycle, to the women.
The target was 15,000 but the girls could exceed that because of the response.
Metro has reported how the long stay away from school since March 2020 has impacted the schoolgirls’ access to sanitary pads, especially on the city’s outskirts and in districts.
Teachers fear that many girls would have slipped into unhygienic ways and gone back to scraps of cloth.
They raised money through workshops, cooking shows and gaming events, which would interest students of their age.
The events that were held online had a participation fee.
“We also raised funds by selling paper bags, rakhis and accessories,” Aishah said.