A three-year-old Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) started by a bunch of college students has taken up the task of improving menstrual hygiene of tribal women from four villages of Anaikatti hills in Coimbatore district.
The NGO, Thozhargalin Karam Charitable Trust (TKCT), has been distributing sanitary napkins to women in Kondanoor, Kondanoor Pudur, Kandivazhi and Panapalli tribal villages since July this year.
TKCT members during an outreach programme conducted in these villages before Deepavali in 2019 realised that tribal women were facing various issues related to menstrual hygiene and most of them were unable to buy sanitary napkins.
“Our volunteers interacted with the women and found out that they need support to improve menstrual hygiene. Women volunteers took classes for them on menstrual hygiene, its importance, benefits of using sanitary napkins and how to discard them. In July, we distributed sanitary napkins sufficient for three months to all tribal women,” said TKCT’s founder of J. Bharanii Dharan.
According to him, the TKCT finds the money for the initiative through crowd funding and organic sanitary napkins are procured from Coimbatore-based start-up Bliss Natural at NGO rate.
As the napkins were made of organic materials, it was easy for the women to discard them, too, he said. The second batch of napkins were distributed to women of the four tribal villages on September 25 and the next batch would be distributed in December, said TKCT’s managing trustee M.G. Yokendra Niruruthish
Social worker G.P.N. Joshua said the intervention of the young NGO had improved the lives of tribal women who were mostly daily wage workers. “We hardly earn enough money to buy sanitary napkins as we struggle to meet other needs with the meagre income,” said a tribal woman.
TKCT, which was started by 16 volunteers of the National Service Scheme attached to Sri Ramakrishna College of Arts and Science in 2019, is also actively doing other social works and outreach programmes in Coimbatore and other cities.
