We are delighted to share a blog written by student Het, from The Rajkumar College, Rajkot, delivering a Global Goals project for the 2020-21 GSL Global Goals Competition.
Their project is among over 957 social action projects currently running as part of the GSL movement and we are excited to be supporting them to design and lead positive social change in their community.
Experience of lifetime that has brought smiles to thousands of people 🙂
Project Summary
Adira is a youth- empowered Non Profitable Organization fighting to end period poverty and taboo across India through service and awareness camps. Our aim is to achieve following SDG goals: Goal 1 No Poverty, Goal 3 Good health and Well-being, Goal 5 Gender Equality, Goal 6 Clean Water and Sanitation, and Goal 10 Reduced Inequality. With millions of women and girls menstruating daily, this is a subject that concerns half the population around the world. However, the issue is particularly prevalent in India where only 36 percent of women have access to sanitary pads.
We believe that having access to sanitary products is as basic as having access to food. Our mission is to reach every single women and girls and help them by educating about menstrual health and hygiene and providing them sanitary products. By our project, the small businesses will be helped and millions of girls whose dreams are stopped by such a small issue won’t be stopped. We reach out to underprivileged girls and women and educate them about menstrual health and provide them access to sanitary products. Millions of girls drop out of school when they start menstruating, but now they won’t!
Until now, we have reached out more than 4500+ underprivileged women and young girls and have provided them access to sanitary products and have educated them about menstrual health and hygiene. We have distributed 9600+ sanitary packets which sums to 57000+ pads Across India. We have worked in ten remote villages where we work on providing regular supply of sanitary pads at a minimal price of one rupee. We have also worked in urban slums where we have provided yearly supply of sanitary pads to disabled women in case of covid-19. We have also worked in orphanages where there are no resources available for the young girls. Once they are familiar with the normal pads it’s then when we introduce them with sustainable sanitary pads such as cloth pads.
Our Journey
The skills we are developing by participating in the GSL Global Goals Competition are ability to work in a team, communication skills and problem solving ability. What I have learned about myself is that I have many hidden skills and from them the most powerful skill I have is leadership skill. The hardest moments of running the project so far are the unexpected hurdles we face. It was our first project, where we were covering 500 women of a remote village. Everything was going smooth, all the deliveries of sanitary packets had come and on the day before we were going to leave we get a call from the local principle of their school that the camp won’t be possible. At that moment we first got very tense but as a team decided to solve the issue wisely. The head of the village didn’t want us to come as he was worried about their village’s safety due to corona. But, we talked to him about how safely we were going to do this with all the required precautions and we were good to go.
In our project we always face spontaneous problems, which come unexpectedly and are always new. The most difficult aspect of running our project is dealing with new problems every single time we face while setting the camps and going through all the required permissions and management. We overcome these problems by learning lessons from the last one and improving and improvising the required things.
Our Next Chapter
The next steps we need to take in order to meet the aims of our project is to increase our reach, raise more awareness and work with different clubs, organizations and government. As from our past experiences we have realized that even though it might seem like people do have awareness about it but it’s not true. Every time we speak about period poverty and how millions of girls drop out of school when they start menstruating, it’s shocking to see how unaware people are about such a huge issue. Reaching out to all those underprivileged young women and girls is the MOST IMPORTANT thing we believe to work on.
We want all those girls and women to fulfill their dreams and not be stopped by such a basic issue. Not just in the next few months, we will keep working until all women and girls have access to sanitary products and menstrual health. We will hold camps in all those places where there are no resources and there’s an urgent need for change.
The 2020-21 GSL Global Goals Competition is now open and runs until June 2021. If you belong to one of the 500+ teams of students currently delivering a social action project as part of the competition we would love to hear from you and feature your blog and project photos on our website to inspire others.
