Why is this critical?

Sukma is a naxal affected tribal region in Chattisgarh. In this remote, cut off location, girls struggle every month for basic requirements. Access to sanitary napkins is abysmal and most girls have never even seen a sanitary napkin! This forces many girls to miss school during periods and also exposes them to the risk of contracting infections.

While the situation is grim, but there are NGOs like Shiksharth, who are encouraging girls to attend school and have access to quality education despite all odds.

We, at Saral Designs, want to do our bit by providing access to sanitary napkins to Shiksharth for distribution in Sukma and with Maharashtra Government for distribution in urban slums of Mumbai.

How does this work?
To provide supply of sanitary napkins to 12,000 girls, we are looking to raise a total of Rs.7,20,000.

Cost per packet of sanitary Pads (including transport): Rs 30
No. of girls: 12,000
No. of packets: 2
Cost of pads per girl: Rs 30 x 2 = Rs 60
Total Budget for 12000 girls: Rs 60 x 12000 = Rs 7,20,000

Active Ultra Sanitary Napkins comply with BIS standards and are produced across India via NGOs and SMEs across Tier-2/3 towns of India using automatic machine technology, Swachh. More than 200,000 women and girls are already using Active Ultra Sanitary Napkins in India. One girl will be provided with a supply of 12 packets for a year. This will be supplemented with training of teachers and girls on key topics like what is the biology behind menstruation, best hygiene practices and myth busting.

Who are we?

Saral Designs
Saral Designs is National Entrepreneurship Award winning start-up working on increasing access to high quality sanitary napkins. Founded in 2015 by alumni of IITs, Saral is taking a systematic approach to address challenges in the menstrual hygiene space.

Approximately 48% of women and girls in rural India use unhygienic materials like cloth, husk, newspaper etc. to manage their periods. Multinational sanitary napkin brands have centralized manufacturing where the initial set-up costs up to INR 50 crores. In addition, the long distribution chain increases the cost of the sanitary pad almost by 50-60%. There are some low-cost, manual, manufacturing units for producing sanitary napkins, but the unit economics are financially unsustainable due to lack of speed and the quality of the product is poor. Understanding this gap, we developed the world’s first automatic and patented machine technology SWACHH, for producing sanitary napkins at a decentralized scale. While decentralization cuts down the distribution costs, the automated production ensures sustainable unit economics and high product quality at half the price of multinational products. These pads are then distributed through a network of local women who act as Sales and Outreach Agents (SOAs) in their respective villages increasing access to high quality pads at the last mile.

We aim to create a better future in menstrual hygiene solving for 4As – Affordability, Access, Awareness and Advocacy. We are committed to create and deliver solutions that would impact millions of people.

For more details, visit: http://saraldesigns.in/

Shiksharth

Shiksharth is started in Sukma, an adivasi dominant area, in 2015 to bridge the gap in education in tribal areas and bring community and its elements inside the classroom. We believe that all the languages that our children speak must be valued and included equally in the classroom rather than just emphasizing on state languages only. We believe it is a pressing need to include the local knowledge, culture and the way of life in school curriculum and teaching methodology. For more details, visit: https://shiksharth.in/