ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP - CLASS OF 2021
United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship. In 2021, over 25,000 young leaders on 2,000+ campuses across 153 nations applied to join the Class of 2021. 136 campuses worldwide (just 6%) were selected to host the 2,000+ Millennium Fellows. The Class of 2021 is bold, innovative, and inclusive.
UNITED NATIONS ACADEMIC IMPACT AND MCN PROUDLY PRESENT TEJASHREE MURUGAN, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW FOR THE CLASS OF 2021.
Indian Institute of Technology Madras | Chennai, India | Advancing SDG 5 & UNAI 3
" Innovation is born from collaboration. As I work on the SDG "Gender Equality", I come across inspiring people from very different walks of life. I am excited to expand this by connecting and working with a diverse set of individuals through this Fellowship, and make a tangible impact on the lives of girl children from across India. My experiences have taught me that education is the key to upliftment, and my dream is that no child should be denied access to education due to something as basic as lack of adequate sanitary facilities. This fuels my passion for the projects that I have undertaken and plan to do in the future. "
Millennium Fellowship Project: Amara
Young girls often drop out of school before completing their education due to a lack of proper washroom facilities and intolerable sanitary conditions. To solve this problem, one of our team members has designed a sanitary pad that is antibacterial, longer-lasting, re-usable, and more sustainable than the ones currently available in the market. The salient features of this design are achieved by property of its structure alone, without the use of harmful chemicals. While the prototype is being developed, we simultaneously worked to launch a social media campaign to draw awareness to the product, as well as increase awareness about topics like menstrual health, hygiene, and women's education. We also conducted seminars at schools across Tamil Nadu, with a focus on Chennai, to educate young girls on these issues, as well as answer any questions they might have. Once the product is ready, we will collaborate with governmental or non-profit organisations to distribute the pads to school children. We are aiming to work with Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, as the sanitary pad design is a sustainable alternative to existing models, which contributes to the Clean India Mission. We believe that these measures would influence young girls to remain in school.
About the Millennium Fellow
Tejashree Murugan is an undergraduate studying Biological Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. Having grown up in various places across the US and India, her multicultural background has emphasized to her the importance of education for gender equality. She is currently working on creating sustainable hygiene products for young women to prevent them from dropping out of higher education - something she was drawn to after volunteering to tutor young children from an orphanage-run school. She is also an avid creative, whose poetry, short stories, and articles have been published in literary journals and magazines across the world.