Pad perfect – championing menstrual hygiene

Ankita Sahoo, known as the ‘padwoman of Odisha’, has been distributing free sanitary napkins and creating awareness about menstrual hygiene among women for over a decade. In another part of the country,  a group of girls from rural Kashmir have started manufacturing low cost sanitary napkins.

Sahoo, who hails from Dadhisinga village in Gondia block of Dhenkanal district, has so far covered more than 25 districts and distributed over 60,000 sanitary pads to about 1 lakh beneficiaries. She organises workshops in schools to make students aware about women’s health issues. Though she works as a media professional, this cause has driven her to connect with people in remote areas even in adverse circumstances. Sahoo has remained undeterred during floods, reaching the inundated areas by boat to distribute sanitary napkins.

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In Jammu and Kashmir’s Bandipora district, 11 girls of Shahgund village have come together to make menstrual pads for rural women with an aim to prevent gynecological infections. Raziy Bano, Ayshia and the other workers of Rahat Sanitary Unit manufacture about 2,000 napkins every day. Starting this initiative in a rural society where people even hesitate to talk about the issue was challenging but the girls accepted it without a second thought. They received assistance from Jammu and Kashmir Rural Livelihood Mission, which provided them equipment and training. 

“This initiative will greatly benefit women’s health and contribute positively to the community as a whole. The affordable price of these sanitary napkins provides a viable alternative for rural women, allowing them to abandon the traditional and unsanitary practice of using cloth,” Raziya said. 

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Subranshu Satpathy is a freelance journalist based in Odisha and Sajid Sarosh is a freelancer journalist based in Kashmir.

Edited by: Novita Singh