E-Paper
Primary school teacher on mission to make Bareilly village ‘kapda mukt’; sets up sanitary pad bank
With no financial assistance from any organisation, the teacher has taken up the cause to promote menstrual hygiene
A primary school teacher in a small Bauriya village in Badhpura block of Bareilly has taken it upon herself to not only spread awareness on menstrual hygiene, but also run a sanitary pad bank for the adolescent girls and women of the village.
The sole crusader Rakhi Gangwar distributes sanitary napkins to over 100 girls and women for free, and without any financial assistance from any organisation.
Thirty-two-year-old Gangwar started this initiative at her school while commemorating Mother’s Day on May 15, with the vision of making the village ‘kapda mukt’ (cloth free). She has been teaching in the school for the last five years.
“Almost all the women here in this remote village in a lesser known part of Bareilly use cloth pads, but they do not know how to use them in the proper way, or how to sanitise or disinfect the cloth before reusing them. Therefore, for the sake of removing the stigma in this village and promoting menstrual health among the women, this felt like a timely initiative,” explained Gangwar.
“I took up a survey with the mothers of my students and other women, and most of the groups responded by saying that they feel ashamed to talk about menstruation openly. Not only do they lack access to pads from pharmacies, but they are also afraid to broach the subject in public,” she said.
A meeting was conducted with about 50 women of the village where Gangwar explained to them the consequences of poor menstrual hygiene, and the kinds of infections and health and physiological issues that it can cause.
After this, she established a sanitary pad bank at the school from where she distributes sanitary pads to all the women in the village.
Women are also free to walk in at any time of the month to request additional pads or claim their stock if they were not able to collect it on the designated day.
She does this purely on her own dime, with no assistance from any government or private organisation or NGO. “When I am unable to meet the expenses of the sanitary products myself, my husband and my brother pitch in to help as well,” said Gangwar.
