Humans for Humanity is a Dehradun based NGO and through its pilot project WASH which is an acronym of ‘Women Sanitation Hygiene’ is informing people about menstruation and the importance of menstrual hygiene, not only spreading the word but educating people on how to make sustainable sanitary napkins kits and
earn money.
The NGO Humans for Humanity was founded in 2014 and is a brainchild of Anurag Chauhan, an Indian social worker who hails from Dehradun and has started
working towards menstrual health as well providing free sanitary napkins to women and men in the rural residencies.
The pilot initiative namely WASH is being conducted in several villages, government schools, slums, colleges across India. A shocking data by UNICEF reveals that 71% of adolescent girls remain unaware of menstruation till they start menstruating. The reason being for this could be the lack of awareness and hesitancy of elders
in explaining it to the girls.
Our founder Anurag @anuragchauhanof started the WASH project & has been working to improve the menstrual conditions of women in India Tribute by @LogicalIndians #MenstrualHygiene #thewashproject @UNICEFIndia @MoHFW_INDIA @MinistryWCD @unwomenindia @SwachhBharatGov @swachhbharat pic.twitter.com/D1LaUH8MV2
— Humans For Humanity (@hfhoffice) June 30, 2020
Why Is Sustainable Menstruation Crucial?
According to United Nations Environment, we produce about 300 million tons of plastic waste annually, in which half of the waste is produced by the use of single
use plastic which incorporates menstrual supplies like pads and tampons even the strings of tampons are produced from plastic.
As per the Plastic Soup Foundation, plastic never decomposes fully. To date around 400 million Indian women account for menstruating, among which 121 million uses commercially produced sanitary napkins which took around 500 years to decompose claims a a study done by Menstrual Health Alliance India and WaterAid India.
Moreover 12 billion sanitary napkins are disposed of in a water stream in a landfill. Its high time to be vocal and encourage about sustainable menstrual hygiene.
One of the initiatives attach to project WASH is ‘sustainable menstruation’ which promotes the usage of environment friendly, biodegradable sanitary napkins for example cloth menstrual pads, menstrual cups, and period underwear.
With the dire climate change situation, we should work towards eco-friendly habits. Coming-of-age sustainable products are biodegradable, reusable, and compostable produce with bamboo fiber, cotton, banana fiber.
Over the past few years various start-ups, have launched sustainable menstrual products which are considered to be a boon in the era of tremendous climate change.
These environment-friendly menstrual products are chemical and plastic-free and are 100 times more comfortable and hygienic as compared to plastic-produced sanitary napkins.
They can be named as green products since its environment friendly, these products are easy to decompose and, reduce the environmental impact and prevent skin rashes and infections cause by plastic-based products and help in promoting good health and well-being in women of our society.
However, the atrocious usage of the sustainable menstrual products is the lack of awareness related to the negative environmental impact of commercial pads and its sustainable alternatives. To achieve the aforementioned agenda, we should create community-led awareness, majority of women are unaware of the immensity of the negative impact that prevails on our surroundings through the usage of traditional pads.
To enhance their knowledge grassroots campaigns led by NGOs, menstrual products companies are important.
Humans for Humanity is working on by organizing grassroots campaigning, educating women, and conducting workshops on how to make eco-friendly, low-cost pads especially those living in a rural area who are oblivious about the circumstance.
The project WASH of a non-governmental organization, Humans for Humanity headquartered in Dehradun has expanded its reach by covering six states of India which includes Uttarakhand, Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana, and others.
Not only educating rural women on sustainable period practices but the pilot project of Humans for Humanity is generating employment for rural and impoverished
section of our society by training hundreds of women in making bio-degradable cost-effective sanitary pads.
The project WASH has reached and covered 1.5 million rural women in India. The workshops cover all the phases of menstruating women from teenage girl to
women in guidance who are in menopause stage.
These workshops are headed and led by experience doctors to make women aware of the biological reason surfacing the menstruation. As per the data the project WASH due to its immense support to rural women has received support from the Indian author and actress Twinkle Khanna.
Humans for Humanity project WASH is seminal example of grassroots work towards sustainable menstruation in India, and how an NGO led by a youth named Anurag Chauhan is spreading the word on the importance of menstrual hygiene, and to implement sustainable menstruation.
This is just one initiative covered by the NGO but there are many other menstrual-related projects done by this Dehradun-based NGO. For its progressive work Anurag Chauhan founder of Humans for Humanity has received “International Women Empowerment award”, “International Women’s Day He for She award” and
Karamveer Chakra by United Nations.