Much before Akshay Kumar’s Padman created a buzz, in the small town of Deoli in Maharashtra’s’Wardha district, 31-year-old Prashant Sathe had been mobilising women from Self Help Groups (SHGs) to sell cotton pads and spread awareness about menstrual hygiene.
Mr. Sathe, a Fellow under the Chief Minister’s Rural Development Fellowship Programme, has managed to bring menstrual hygiene to the forefront in a place where the subject was never discussed. A testament to his success is the fact that since September last year, the SHGs have sold over 15,000 pads in about a dozen villages in Deoli.
“For my work under the Fellowship, I would conduct meetings with women’s groups in the village I was posted in. I noticed that there was rarely full attendance. As I probed, some women opened up and told me that they could not attend meetings on account of their periods,” said Mr. Sathe, who is posted in Bhidi Village. “I found out that women used cloth, which had its limitations. They preferred to sit in the confines of their homes rather than step out for their chores like they would on other days.”
Mr. Sathe decided it was important to introduce the women to sanitary napkins. “Firstly, they had no access to pads. And even if they did, they did not have the kind of money to buy it,” he said.
To start with, Mr. Sathe got hold of vendors who could supply him good quality sanitary pads at cheaper rates. He then mobilised SHG’s to pack and label packets of 10 pads under two names, Smart Shakti and Sakhi, both coined by the SHG women.
These packets are sold at ₹20 and ₹25, and a SHG makes a profit of ₹3 to ₹4. Mr Sathe’s initiative has had a two-pronged impact: it promotes menstrual hygiene, and at the same time, it creates a source of income for the women. “I have acted as a mediator. Now the women know the importance of hygiene and they also know their profits. Therefore, they reach out to as many women as possible,” Mr. Sathe said.
Jayashree Kukudde, a gramvikas adhikari in Bhidi village says that conversations about menstruation have always been awkward. “But slowly, women are opening up. Can you imagine that women from SHG sell sanitary pads openly during meetings and other gatherings?” she said.
