Dollar Industries focuses on menstrual hygiene with #BeFreeBeYou initiative

Promoting facilities for underprivileged girl children, the brand plans to install 100 sanitary vending machines in schools across the state in phase-1

Dollar Industries as a part of their CSR initiative, in association with SEED (Society for Socio Economic and Ecological Development) has launched a campaign #BeFreeBeYou. The campaign aims to improve the menstrual hygiene of the underprivileged girls, where sanitary napkin vending machines are to be installed in Government schools across West Bengal.

In the first phase 100 sanitary napkin vending machines will be installed around Kolkata & Sub-urban areas. These machines will provide good quality sanitary napkins at a nominal cost. Schools have been identified on the basis of having maximum underprivileged girl children and workshops will be conducted in each of the schools to create mass awareness on this issue.

The #BeFreeBeYou campaign was launched by popular actress Debadrita Basu, in the presence of Vedika Gupta, Vice President, Dollar Industries Ltd & Dr. Somenath Bhattacharyya, Executive Director, SEED.

The motto of the campaign is to decrease the school dropout rate of underprivileged girls due to lack of proper menstrual hygiene management facilities. According to a study report, 23 million girls drop out of school annually in India and the reason includes unavailability of sanitary napkins and logical awareness of menstruation. Through this initiative, the brand aimed to educate the girls about the taboos, myths and restrictions related to menstruation, wrong cultural practices and hygiene routines. This initiative focuses to enlighten the girls about the proper use of sanitary napkins and impart proper knowledge and create awareness related to the physiology of menstruation.

“#BeFreeBeYou is a passion project for us at Dollar. A comparative study on menstrual hygiene for West Bengal undertaken in the recent past revealed that only a limited percentage of adolescent girls are aware of menstruation prior to attainment of menarche. While menstrual hygiene is lowest in Eastern India, with 83% women saying their families cannot afford sanitary napkins. Thus, we decided to tie up with SEED for this initiative. We have plans to install - 100 sanitary napkin vending machines across schools in Kolkata & Sub-Urban areas as a first phase of this initiative”, said Vedika Gupta, Vice President, Dollar Industries Ltd.

“#BeFreeBeYou is a great initiative which will benefit scores of school children from the underprivileged strata of the society with regards to improved hygienic practices. This would help in taking a step forward to break the barrier of whispering about menstruation and would motivate the girls to share and care about healthy and hygienic practices. And above all, it will decrease the dropout percentage of the adolescent girls, which is very high due to inability of handling menstruating days properly. We are extremely thankful to Dollar Team, who are equally enthusiastic to bring in a change in the lives of these girls”, said Dr. Somenath Bhattacharyya, Executive Director, SEED.

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