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Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all!

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THE ISSUE

Rural women are key agents for achieving the transformational economic, environmental, and social changes. But gender inequality, lack of education, and health care are among the many challenges they face, which are further aggravated by menstrual stigma and superstition in many cultures. Empowering rural women is key not only to the well-being of individuals, families, and rural communities but also to overall economic productivity, given women’s large presence in the workforce worldwide.

OUR RESPONSE

We believe economic empowerment of rural women, through social enterprise agencies, contributes to alleviating poverty, increasing self-esteem, and confidence, and achieving gender equality. Within the context of Menstrual Health & Hygiene management, we achieve this by creating a sustainable social enterprise that upskills and employs women, as well as spreads awareness and increases accessibility to sanitary products. 

Build a Factory Program

Cost: $15,000 / factory

Highlights:

• • • • Employes around 10 women per micro-factory
      • End to end women-run business operation (Procurement – Production – Sales)
      • Pads are sold at an affordable cost to promote accessibility
      • An added benefit with sales team acting as MHH ambassadors with peer to peer education
      • Self-sustaining model to achieve women empowerment through employment, raise awareness and increase access

We aim to build a small-scale manufacturing factory (micro-factory) to manufacture good-quality sanitary napkins through decentralized village-based labor-intensive manufacturing units. Providing livelihood to rural women and an opportunity to work, earn and learn at the all-women manufacturing units, and thus empowering them.

In this model, we are able to provide them an opportunity to step out of the domestic confines and be engaged in a professional production process, and they also earn income. This program will not only upskill women to manufacture pads, but it will also expose them to all aspects of an enterprise – marketing, sales, procurement, operations, finance, leadership, etc. By engaging local rural women productively in the pad manufacturing and distribution process and integrating with awareness campaigns, it is easier to tackle the social-behavioral challenges.

Talking and discussing the menstrual hygiene issue and the use of sanitary pads is an integral part of our door-to-door distribution model too. Often the women who are engaged in manufacturing activities do undertake this door-to-door distribution work too on selected days. This gives them an opportunity to earn some extra money too.

From coy, shy, and homely ladies, these women and girls will transform into confident, aware, empowered, and skilled entrepreneurs. They are not only manufacturing sanitary pads themselves but also leading the movement in their villages and communities by making other women aware and conscious of this important health and menstrual hygiene issues.