Empowering communities with menstrual hygiene management

Shuchita aims to make resources for menstrual hygiene management accessible to women in marginalised communities of Bangladesh through different campaigns. Since their inception in 2020, the initiative has completed 13 workshops across the country.

"It started in Satkhira when a lady requested sanitary pads because there was no access to clean sanitation in her village. It occurred to me that we did not consider something basic like hygiene packs as a necessity in our relief goods until then. We went with relief goods to the Amphan stricken village, but not with sanitary pads," explained Fatiha Polin, an Acumen fellow and CEO of Shuchita.

"I have always worked with people and for people. Her words stayed with me, and I wanted to come up with a sustainable solution."

She believes menstrual health should not be inaccessible to underprivileged communities. Polin, who is also an architect at PERCEIVE, the mother organisation of Shuchita, has been involved with Covid-19 relief work from the start of the pandemic.

Menstrual health is a crucial issue in different parts of Bangladesh due to affordability and inaccessibility to proper sanitation and clean water. "Even if we provided sanitary pads, people might not know how to use them or dispose of them in rivers. We wanted to teach people safe menstruation practices," Polin explained.

Upon returning to Dhaka, she researched and developed Shuchita's own reusable sanitary pads within months after finding the available market options unsatisfactory. The result was 400 reusable sanitary pads in the first batch, all of which were distributed in Satkhira.

Now, Shuchita has three production hubs in Dhaka, Khagrachari, and Dinajpur. Polin explained that they equip women with different, necessary life skills. "We want underprivileged women to earn incomes so they can be self-reliant. We want them to feel benefited from our workshops," she added.

Their workshops cover everything from safe menstrual practices and skill training to producing reusable pads. With a network of over 65 volunteers, Shuchita has conducted workshops in Rohingya camps too.

Moving forward, Polin hopes to reach out to all 64 districts of Bangladesh through her efforts.

"Funding and resource mobilisation is a major issue. But so far, the response we have gotten from the communities has helped us," she concluded.

The author is a freelance journalist.