Sanitary Napkin In Rural India: Test Of Sustainability
Victoria D ' souza, Kedar Kulkarni, Hanish Dhume, SPJIMR- Mumbai
KEYWORDS Sustainability,
Menstrual Hygiene Management,
Self-Help-Group, Sanitary Napkin.
ABSTRACT
The case describes in detail how UNICEF and NGO SACRED worked for the improvement in rural livelihood by addressing Menstrual Hygiene Management in villages of Jalna district, Maharashtra. The Case talks about how the office of SACRED in Aurangabad developed a plan to distribute“ Nirmal” sanitary napkins in the villages coming under the Bhokardan Taluka. The case revolves around the protagonist, Mr. Jayant Deshpande who is the secretary of NGO SACRED and highlights the dilemmas faced by him in executing this project.' Deepshikha ' s were village women mostly in the age group of 15 to 25 years, some of whom were married, with no prior selling experience apart from creating awareness in the villages about menstrual hygiene. The Case showcases how they played a major role in a business model which not only included dealing with the customer at a very personal level and selling the sanitary napkins, but also included educating them about the usage of the same. The Case also talks about how a sanitary napkin production unit was set up by the women self-help group( SHG) of Kedarkheda village to provide employment to the people in that area and a pilot project was launched to test the sustainability of the designed business model.
CASE STUDY
INTRODUCTION Mr. Jayant Deshpande sat in the office of SACRED in Aurangabad on April 2, 2012 looking at the plan laid out before him. It was a very elegant plan developed to distribute“ Nirmal” sanitary napkins in the villages coming under the Bhokardan taluka. During his tenure at SACRED as secretary, never before had he had the slightest doubt about implementing a project. SACRED, which stands for Society for Action in Creative Education & Development, had implemented various projects since its inception in 1982. Being an NGO, it was always difficult to gather funds for its operations. Its tie up with UNICEF fourteen years ago had been fruitful. Both of them together could implement the project efficiently with the funding from UNICEF & effective implementation strategies of SACRED.
Today, Jayant thought about the Deepshikha project started one and half years back at the Bhokardan taluka office. The project was aimed at improving rural livelihood by creating awareness about menstrual hygiene in the villages, abolishing child marriages, abolishing child labor and promoting child education. The plan that lay down before him would now form a part of this project. All projects were handled by the NGO staff with minimum support by the villagers, mostly when it involved creating awareness. The plan of distributing sanitary napkins banked totally on the Deepshikhas.
Deepshikhas were village women mostly in the age group of 15 to 25 years, some of whom were married. With no prior selling experience apart from creating awareness in the villages about menstrual hygiene, they were now going to play a major role in a business model which included dealing with the customer and selling the sanitary napkin. Though this was a major concern, Mr. Jayant thought about the effect that this project could have on the business model. The outcome of the selling exercise would be used to analyze the feasibility of setting up a sanitary napkin production unit in Kedarkheda village. The production unit would be set up by the women’ s self-help group of Kedarkheda village and would provide employment to people in the area. SACRED would be responsible to create awareness of the product and distribute the sanitary napkin to the Deepshikhas under this project. The self help group operating the production unit would also sell the sanitary napkins through commercial and institutional outlets.
Most importantly, the pilot project banked on the quality of the sanitary napkins that were hand made by the women working in the Solapur sanitary napkin production unit. Mr. Jayant wondered,“ Was the customer aware about the sanitary napkin? Will the customer accept the quality of the product? Is Deepshikha ready to accept this challenge? Can the model sustain with Deepshikha as the backbone? If the pilot project is a success, will the Kedarkheda sanitary napkin production unit be competent enough to supply this demand?” From his years of experience in the field of rural livelihood, Mr. Jayant knew that he had to move
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