Gifting Drives II & III - World Menstrual Hygiene Day 2019
28th May of every year is regarded as World Menstrual Hygiene Day. To celebrate MH Day this year, we ran a campaign to gift sanitary pads to young girls who are less privileged than us. The objective of this campaign is to enable these kids with clean and sanitary means of managing their period. We aim to do this by weaning them off old rags and cloth, which they currently use as absorbents, and introduce them to sanitary pads.
We conducted Round 2 and Round 3 of our gifting drive on Monday, 1st July, at a BMC Medical Outpost and at a Rescue Home for Girls, respectively. We gifted them a period kit containing sanitary napkins, hand sanitizers, Dettol, protein based biscuits and sweets!
At the BMC Medical Outpost, we invited Dr. Shweta Attarwala to speak to girls between the ages of 11 and 14 about menstruation, maintaining hygiene, and breaking the taboo behind it. Throughout the session, the children were attentive, but also very shy!
Towards the end of the lecture, we urged them to approach us in case of questions, doubts, or anything they may want to discuss. A few girls asked us questions such as how to manage the pain that accompanies periods. Some kids even asked innocent questions, like why we get pimples when on our period! We encouraged the children to open up and speak to their families as well as friends about any period woes they may have.
At the Rescue Home for Girls, our beneficiaries were between the ages of 15 and 19. These girls have been rescued from illegal professions, and rehabilitated in a safe environment. We invited Dr. Sangeeta Soman to speak to the girls about maintaining health and hygiene during menstruation. She also taught them how pads are to be worn, and how the girls must dispose pads in a hygienic manner. Later, quite a few girls approached Dr. Sangeeta with questions about menstruation and reproductive health.
The children and teenagers were delighted to receive the kit. Some kids went straight for the sweets and wolfed them down!
We launched the ‘Gift a Pack of Pads’ campaign on 20th May 2019 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!
Gifting Drive 1 was conducted at an orphanage in Mumbai. You can read about it here.
Gifting Drives 2 & 3 were conducted in association with the Rotary Club of Borivali and the Inner Wheel Club of Bombay Kandivali.
We will be conducting the next few rounds of the Gifting Drive in the months of July and August.
If you wish to contribute to the 'Gift a Pack of Pads!' campaign, here is the link - shop.thepinkboxindia.com/gift
