Kochi: Three law students of Kochi were spearheading a silent campaign during the last year to provide proper menstrual care to underprivileged girls in orphanages and women in rural areas who often could not afford to purchase sanitary napkins, pads or menstrual cups among others.
The three – Sara Fathima, Ayushi Dangre and Pritishree Dash of the National University of Advanced Legal Studies (NUALS)—have now tied up with the Ernakulam district Kudumbashree Mission and aims to make hygiene awareness among tribals of Kuttampuzha, 55 km northeast of Kochi, through their initiative named ‘Code Red’.
“The tribal settlement is not aware of the menstruation products and use pieces of cloth. They reuse the pieces after washing. The unhygienic practice can lead to infections and discomfort among other health issues,” said Fathima.
Besides conducting awareness sessions at the tribal colonies, they also give tribal women sanitary napkins and pads for free.
“The initiative has two objects – distribution of pads to the tribal women and helping the Kudumbashree napkin (production) unit. We’ll buy from the women’s self-help group instead of branded products readily available in the market and provide them for free among the women in the tribal settlement,” she said.
A total of 25 families will get the benefit in the first phase which will be extended to 100 families in phases. “We’ve already distributed sanitary pads for the next three months. The Kudumbashree workers will now provide the materials after we purchase and hand over the same to them,” Fathima said.
With their first initiative to provide sanitary napkins to the inmates of orphanages receiving overwhelming response from the social media, many firms and people have come forward to donate money for the cause.
