Of the many women who have chosen to speak and bust the period taboos, Sahidul Islam from Morigaon district of Assam too has set a benchmark on how to break the stereotypes.
Islam under the Stree Swabhiman project has set up his own sanitary pad unit in the district and distributes sanitary pads free of cost to school-going girls. The sanitary pads are bio-degradable, eco-friendly. Apart from this, he is actively involved in making awareness campaigns on menstrual hygiene in remote villages and providing sanitary pads to women at a low cost in rural areas.
Hailing the efforts, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad recently took to his official Twitter handle and wrote, “CSC VLE Sahidul Islam from Morigaon, Assam has set up his own Sanitary Pad unit in his area. He makes women aware about menstrual hygiene & provides sanitary pads at low cost in rural areas. Recently he distributed sanitary pads free of cost to High School girls,”.
He is currently the Village Level Entrepreneur of the Common Services Centres (CSC) Academy introduced by the Central Government. Through the initiative, the government is currently working towards creating avenues for rural and semi-urban women to become self-reliant and live an eco-friendly lifestyle.
It may be mentioned that the CSC has more than 35000 women entrepreneurs providing various G2C and B2C services to citizens’ especially in rural India and through this project sanitary napkin manufacturing units are being set up to promote women’s health and hygiene. These manufacturing units have turned out to be a boon for the women who have been neglecting menstrual health.
The CSC has also been empowering women entrepreneurs to educate women of their society to overcome this social taboo and encourage the usage of sanitary pads.
Photo credit: Kuldeep Bordoloi
