Our project “Rajaswala” which means means “Menstruating women” is working on gender equality (SDG- 5) coupled with good health and well-being (SDG- 3). Despite impressive gains in the last five years, as many as 27% of young rural women still use unhygienic methods of protection during their menstrual period, found the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) held in 2019-21. We realise that even though menstruation is a completely biological process, it is steeped in silence, myths, taboos and even stigma. When women and girls face difficulties with managing their menstruation, it negatively impacts the enjoyment of human rights and gender equality.

The project aims to address these challeges by following a four pronged approach-
(1) Awareness, (2) Distribution (3) Sanitation and Management (4) Disposal

(1) Awareness- As we mentioned in the start of our answer, a lot of stigma around menstruation and menstrual hygiene we see around us in the society and the resulting inaccessibility of it is the product of a lack of awareness around menstruation . Moving forward, we intend to organise workshops and seminars in schools all around Lucknow starting from Indian Public Inter College Alambagh, JNV Piparsand which are in a 5 km range.
2) Distribution- We intend to ensure that the underpriviledged get the chance to take the right care of themselves which is why we plan to provide them with menstrual kits.
3) Sanitation and management- In the workshops, we will also teach people about specific hygiene and sanitation which could protect girls from several illnesses alongwith local coomunity health workers.
4) Disposal- We are planning to install vending machines for pads that would also have an incinerator built in so that the waste created can be dealt with and woud not create a dump in landfills.