Kutch buries period taboos

Rajkot: “I saw rural females, including young girls, hang on to old beliefs about menstrual cycle and the worst is their reluctance to talk about it, forget adapting to changes,” said one of the two pad women of Kutch, Chetna Patel, who along with Mayuri Patel chose to do something different to introduce women in remote areas to sanitary pads. The duo, joined other women in a self help group (SHG), distributed around 28,000 pads by earning only Rs 1 per pad in the past year.
In their efforts to usher in cleanliness and concepts of hygiene among women in Mundra taluka, the Patels managed to enlist six other women and started to manufacture pads. “We decided to make these pads but in the initial period we had to face resentment from our family also. But slowly more women joined us and now we are also organising awareness programmes at remote schools, girls’ hostels and providing pads at a very cheap rate,” Chetna told TOI.
“We are providing a packet of five pads for Rs 20,” said Mayuri Patel, adding that they purchase the raw material from Madhya Pradesh and do not compromise with quality.
According to the duo, in the initial period it was difficult for them to convince hostel and school authorities to let them discuss this topic with the girls above age of 12 years. However, with time, they are now getting invitation to conduct awareness campaigns and have also got a new order of one lakh pads.
They cannot afford the transportation cost at present but are not charging extra cost to send pads to various talukas as their main objective is not to book profit, they said.