The government and various voluntary organisations have been providing ration and other relief material to people affected adversely by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, menstrual hygiene is one aspect which was not addressed by many. Considering this, one voluntary organisation is providing sanitary napkins to women in need amidst the pandemic.

“Period poverty has been accentuated amidst the pandemic and sanitary napkins are generally last on the list of people’s priority,” says co-founder of Million Daughters Foundation, Kunjika Rawat.

Million Daughters Foundation is a Dehradun based social organisation founded by Jasleen Sethi and Kunjika Rawat which is currently tackling the sanitary napkin issue triggered by the pandemic by providing women and young girls with sanitary products across the villages of Uttarakhand.

The initiative of spreading awareness about menstrual hygiene started in May last year during the Covid-19 outbreak. The organisation started working on the outskirts of Dehradun like in villages around Ranipokhri where women were told about the do’s and don’ts to maintain menstrual hygiene and were provided with sanitary pads, face masks and sanitisers to keep themselves safe and healthy.

When the second wave hit Uttarakhand the organisation moved to the interior regions of the state as there is a severe lack of menstrual hygiene products in such areas. Now ASHA workers are visiting each house and delivering sanitary products to the women. The organisation is also providing ASHA workers with PPE Kits so that they can also keep themselves safe while distributing sanitary pad packets to women and girls of their areas.

Kunjika Rawat said, “Our aim is to help all the women gain access to sanitary napkins and then lead a healthy and normal life. Women don’t have access to the sanitary napkins and continue to use cloth and keep re using it because of lack of proper knowledge and such unhygienic methods can have serious health consequences.”

“We have started a pilot project in Pauri where we are asking people to donate their old bed-sheets to us so that we can turn them into cloth masks for the ones in need. The problem with surgical masks which was distributed earlier is that you can only use them once and people were also not disposing of them correctly,” she added.

People living in the villages are not as aware of the seriousness of the pandemic so their volunteers are also visiting the Covid-19 affected villages where they distribute face masks, oxymeters, steamers, thermometers and medicines to the villagers, said Rawat.