A project which was taken up as a challenge considering the taboo prevalent in the society about menstrual cycle, has now evolved into a campaign to promote eco-friendly products.
St Anthony’s HS from Galgibag Canacona developed a combo composter which accepted the Sakhi biodegradable sanitary napkin along with the wet waste generated in the school. The project was very successful as the compost generated was used for plants which gave healthy yield. This is enough a certificate of our hard work and should definitely convince people of our product’s positive impact. The school now uses biodegradable sanitary pads for its female students and staff,” says Jayashri Parwar, founder of Saheli Self Help Group and proprietor of Sakhi Biodegradable sanitary napkins. The said biodegradable napkin is made of pine wood pulp, polyethylene paper, non-woven cloth. the label is made of butter paper and super bond adhesive is used to bond all the raw material together into a finished product. A pack of 8 biodegradable sanitary pads priced around Rs 40. The only use of plastic here is for the packaging, but the samples for biodegradable packaging material are currently in final phase of production.
The raw material for the napkins is purchased from Coimbatore where the order is placed via email and transactions carried out online. “My family members assist me in handling the social media (managing Facebook page of Sakhi) and other online transactions. Coming from educationally underprivileged background, the support from family members is a boon for me,” says the group leader who also mentions that Sakhi pack can now be ordered from Amazon.
Fighting against a taboo prevalent in the society while making a profitable business out of it carries significant risks. But this challenge was accepted by Jayashri Parwar and her team from the small village Pilgao in Bicholim taluka. A project proposal, which had failed to work with a team earlier, was put forth for implementation in front of a federation of around 60 self-help groups in Bicholim. The mere mention of the term sanitary napkins was enough for most of the self help groups to back out of the scene. “I along with another member of our self-help group Saheli went ahead and gave it a shot. The proposal came along with a challenge that we had to use up all the raw material lying with the earlier owners within a year or two. Only then would we get the possession of all the machinery held by the owners. I started making the sanitary napkins in my own house with the support of my family. Marketing the product was the major task,” says Jayashri, who along with two three other women of her group put up stalls at events such as Saras exhibition, Lokotsav etc. During these exhibitions, she realised that people used to shy away from coming to the stall. While the men would convince their wives about the importance of biodegradable and hygienically safe sanitary napkins, the wives would hesitate to purchase or even stand the stall. There were times when Jayashri would walk to people and tell them about the benefits of the napkins to young girls. The few who bought the product gave good reviews and placed orders for more.
Even though the business has considerably improved now, the difficult task of combating the taboo on talking openly about periods and sanitary napkins still remains. The business is currently breaking even, and Jayashri hopes that people have benefited with the use of the product. Many women who suffered from various Urinary Tract Infections and rashes have got good results with the biodegradable option. Jayashri also mentions that the sanitary napkins used in the Akshay Kumar starrer Padman movie that highlighted the taboo on menstrual cycle prevalent in the society were the same as Saheli.
Goa government recently proposed the launch Stri Sakhi scheme wherein sanitary napkins dispensing machines would be set up in various schools/colleges/construction worksites and industrial establishments where the concentration of women workforce is more across the state. This will provide working women and girls easy access to pads. . When asked whether Sakhi has received any boost from the scheme, Jayashri mentioned that unfortunately, the pads developed by Sakhi are not compatible with the dispensing machines bought by the government or else it would have been a major boost to one of its kind startups by the self-help-group.
