On a global level, at least 500 million women and girls lack adequate facilities for menstrual hygiene management. More than 77% of menstruating women in India use an old cloth, which is often reused, ashes, newspapers, dried leaves and husk sand during periods.

Lack of knowledge as to how one should maintain their hygiene during menstruation can cause problems with long term effects. Underprivileged women who do not have access, means or the knowledge regarding the same suffer during these hard times and hence the TABOO remains.

I'm Amiya, a high school student, volunteering with Hamari Pahchan NGO. A few years back I saw the Hindi movie ‘Padman.’ It showed the story of a husband trying to convince his wife to use sanitary pads instead of reusing rags, to break the taboo that society places on women during menstruation. This led him to improvise a low-cost machine to manufacture sanitary napkins so that the napkins could be made available to the community at low cost. It depicted how the society we live in right now is such that women are unable to voice out their thoughts, and are always taught that this is something that needs to be kept secretive, or something to not be talked about.

This topic interests me because I want to educate people on the topic. I want the underprivileged women of society to have a proper menstrual hygiene so that there are no long-term effects, they don't get affected by skin diseases etc.

After conducting a survey in the slums, it was discovered that there are women who are suffering from various problems due to non-maintenance of their menstrual health.