Campaign, Community Service, Gifting, Girls in Need, Health, Increase Access, Menstrual Hygiene, Menstruation, MHDay2019, Period, Period Positive, Period Poverty - June 1, 2019

Gifting Drive I - World Menstrual Hygiene Day 2019

Menstruation. Period. Some of us own it, while it's a taboo for some.

The length of a menstrual cycle is, most commonly, 28 days. Of these 28 days, women menstruate - or get their period - for an average of 5 days. Hence 5/28, which is 28th May in the MM/DD format, is celebrated as Menstrual Hygiene Day!

Through the efforts of the organizers and their partners, what MH Day does is:

breaks the silence, raises awareness and changes negative social norms around Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM), and
engages decision-makers to increase the political priority and catalyze action for MHM, at global, national and local levels.

Here at The Pink Box, one of our goals has always been to raise awareness about menstrual hygiene among the less privileged section of society, and make sanitary essentials accessible and available to them. Which is why for this year’s World Menstrual Hygiene Day, we launched a campaign - 'Gift a Pack of Pads!'.

We urged our friends, family, colleagues and extended circle to contribute a pack of sanitary pads, for only Rs. 35, which would be gifted to a girl in need. One pack of pads would cover a girl's sanitary requirement for one month. The more packs contributed, the more young girls will be benefited!

We conducted Round 1 of our Gifting Drive at an orphanage in Mumbai. For reasons of privacy, we are unable to name the orphanage and divulge details of the same.

In association with a community service organization, we partook in an Arts and Crafts session with the children residing at the orphanage. We helped the children make jewelry using clay.

We then held a 10 minute talk with girls between the ages of 11 and 16, where we spoke about hygienic practices of managing their period and avoiding the stigma associated with menstruation. We then gifted them packs of sanitary pads, which they were very happy to receive!

We launched the campaign on 20th May and in under 48 hours, we had already raised contributions for over 500 packs of pads! Our target was to raise at least 2000 packs before Tuesday, 28th May 2019. And we are happy to announce that we have more than met that number!