Gramya Sansthan - Low-Cost Sanitary Napkin

Project Brief: An initiative to improve health status of the adolescent girls and women and generate livelihood avenues in rural areas"


Project Type: Community Based Interventions (description)
Primary Focus: health and cleanliness (description)

Secondary Focus: girls

Area: Rural
Supporting Chapter Contact: St. Louis
Status: current / ongoing
Project Steward: Payal Tiwari
Project Partner(s): Bindu Singh
Other Contacts: Anshul Sachdev
Project Address: , Gramya Sansthan , L-40, VDA Colony, Chandmari,Lalpur II, Lamhi, Sarnath,Varanasi,
UTTAR PRADESH  221007
Tel: 91 9415222597
Stewarding Chapter: St. Louis
Oct 2017PurdueUSD 4835
Oct 2017St. LouisUSD 5118

Total = $9953

Overall Goal: This goal of this project is to set up a low cost sanitary napkin enterprise for proving affordable option for menstrual hygiene management to reduce the school absenteeism due to menstruation and creating employability to the girls & women in the working areas”.
Project Objectives:
1. To establish low cost sanitary napkin production unit managed by rural women/ Self Help Groups for ensuring adequate supply of sanitary napkins at affordable price.
2. Globally, periods are causing girls to be absent from school . A good proportion of the adoles-cent girls attend the schools but take leave during the mensuration cycle. This project would help us in improving the school attendance among adolescent girls.
3.. To improve the economic conditions of women & provide them the opportunities for augment-ing their income.
4. To create awareness among rural girls & women on issues of Menstrual Hygiene Manage-ment.
5. To provide quality infrastructure in the form of vending machines & incinerators to promote Menstrual Hygiene Management in schools.
6. To engage some rural unemployed youths in production and marketing and also to fulfill the school requirements to maximum parts.

Project target:
-Adolescent girls (10-19 age group)
-Women (20-45 age group)

A Self-Sustaining Micro-Enterprise Model
It is a sustainable revenue generating enterprise that gives stakeholders the opportunity to be ac-tively involved and engaged in manufacturing and distributing the product. By making a nominal investment in the machine and employing around 5 to 6 women per machine say it at a unit. SHGs can empower women in marginalized communities. This ensures that many self-help groups can tap into the resources of this eco-friendly sanitary napkin market, as well as reduce high transportation costs by locally using this small machine.
Furthermore, the proposed project does not compromise on the quality of the sanitary napkin as the raw material used comes from pinewood fiber and not from cotton. The sanitary napkin also has a biodegradable element which ensures minimal damage to the environment.

Expected outcome:
1. Awareness about menstrual hygiene management in rural population, thus providing an at-mosphere of confidence.
2. Better menstrual hygiene leads to decrease in prevalence of RTIs and hence, better health.
3. Reduction in school absenteeism due to menstruation.
3. Training local women and hence, providing employment opportunities and augmenting their income.
4. Incentive for workers for sale of sanitary napkins, thus encouragement leading to motivational force.
5. Convergence of National flagship Program namely NRHM, SBM AND SGSY would provide common ground for these program.
The mission of GRAMYA is set as empowering the marginalized and Socially Excluded people with the focus on women and children to make them capable of leading their pro-cess of development and effective participation in the decision making.
The origin of GRAMYA SANSTHAN is an outcome of active work with women at grass root level, thinking, reflecting as well as analysing the socio- economic and political situa-tions with women in the country. Lack of effective participation in decision making, dis-crimination based on gender, unequal rights, disrespect and lack of dignity, violation of women’s rights, and lack of political efforts for the status of women as an equal citizen, silence of society on the issues of violence against women etc. have led to establish an organization that can address the issues as stated above and can bring its vision to the ground reality. Aiming this Gramya came into existence in the year 1990, focusing its ac-tivities and work with most marginalised people i.e. Tribals, Dalits and women in the State of Uttar Pradesh.

Since last 23 years, Gramya is working to empower excluded communities to enable them to demand for their entitled rights and to promote their non discriminatory access to that by generating mass awareness, leadership development and collectivization of mar-ginalized communities advocating for their rights. Gramya is making efforts to represent the issues of community based organizations of excluded communities at district/state and national level through its active participation in various CSO Networks, People’s Movement etc.