Chandigarh ‘padwomen’ start hygiene campaign; distribute sanitary napkins among slum dwellers

Two teenage girls from Chandigarh have started their own hygiene campaign--Stop the spot--and are distributing low-cost sanitary napkins to women and girls in the slum areas of the city.

Chandigarh, July 13: There is no doubt Bollywood (as the Hindi film industry is popularly known) is one of the biggest influencers in the country.

When popular actor Akshay Kumar enacted the role of "Padman" (in the movie of the same name) inspired by the life of Arunachalam Muruganantham, a social activist from Tamil Nadu who introduced low-cost sanitary pads, probably for the first time the nation spoke openly about the importance of menstrual hygiene and the need to provide cost-effective sanitary napkins to the underprivileged women and girls.

Taking a cue from the hit film, two teenage girls from Chandigarh have started their own hygiene campaign--Stop the spot--and are distributing low-cost sanitary napkins to women and girls in the slum areas of the city.

The two girls--Jaanvi Singh (15) and Laavanya Jain (17)--with apt help from family and friends are also making sanitary napkins on their own to be distributed among the underprivileged section of society.

"After watching Padman, we thought we should buy pads and distribute it to women who can't afford it. But the cost was too much and that's why we decided to make them ourselves," Jaanvi told ANI.

"Each pad made by us costs Rs 2. I will try to teach it to students at my board school," Jaanvi added.

They make packets of 10 sanitary napkins each and packed them in newspaper rolls to avoid using plastic bags, reported ANI.

Now, that is how we can all change our society and these two teenagers show us all that "where there is a will there is a way".