Like every month from 2017, come July 2022 Saumya Pandey, an entrepreneur and an investor, will be back in the slums of the Delhi with Cold Cramp fighting against period poverty. In there she will not only be pushing the cause menstrual hygiene but also be distributing sanitary pads to the homeless women and celebrate many young girls’ first period.
Despite the humble beginnings and limited resources of a young college student, Cold Cramp has gone from strength to strength. The campaign’s objective is to support menstrual hygiene for the homeless women. It all started with donated sanitary pads to 22 homeless women in Okhla and Kalkaji areas and has now spread to over three slums of Delhi and a beneficiary reach of over 500 women e very month.
According to Saumya, she got the idea to start the Cold Cramp campaign way back in 2015. “I got the idea about 7 years ago when I was still a student at Jamia Millia. While commuting to college I use to see many homeless women living on the roads without any basic facilities like clean water and bed. That left me thinking about how these women must have been managing their health and hygiene during menstrual days. More so during the winters when women are particularly more vulnerable to the health hazards posed by menstrual hygiene and that is why we named our campaign Cold Cramp.”
Saumya claims she is acutely aware of the health hazards lack of menstrual hygiene posses, so she decided to do her bit. “In beginning I use to donate from my own pockets but many people joined in my donation campaign and it grew with the help of friend, family and relatives support. I even campaigned in girls’ PGs. I would put a big box in common area with a flyer where every girl could donate 2-3 pads or pack of pads.”
According to her, the death of her grandmother from uterus cancer left her shaken. “I believe somewhere behind the death of my grandmother was bad menstrual hygiene. So now when I see any women unable to take care of their menstrual hygiene because of the lack of resources it pains me. It is a right of every woman.”
She adds, “I have seen people donating food, clothes, health care support then why not consider the menstrual poverty as a major problem. We at Cold Cramp donation drive have celebrated many young girls’ first period and have educated them about the dos and don’ts.