Very rarely do we come across people who care about others without expecting anything in return. We at “Kumily Calling” had the good fortune to come across one such genuine soul who is passionate about the cause of Kumily and strives to develop the town and empower the marginalised within the Town.
Such is the story of Lakshmy Das a young lady aged 27 years who found the existing garbage disposal system in Kumily inadequate to deal with the problems faced by women in disposing their sanitary waste such as sanitary napkins, because the wastes are manually sorted.
Although Kumily Panchayat has an excellent system of waste management wherein bio-waste and plastic waste are collected at the doorsteps of the residents such a system does not cater to the management of sanitary waste and sanitary napkins. Lakshmy found this to be a major problem when she returned from Kochi where she did her under graduation. She had been used to throwing out the sanitary waste into the garbage bin there but when she returned to Kumily she found this a major cause for concern.
Lakshmy who had earlier done a stint of volunteering at Auroville, in Pondicherry had come across a project called Eco Femme that worked toward creating environmental and social change through sustainable menstrual practices. Therefore, Lakshmy reached out to Eco Femme which was into providing reusable sanitary pads for the poor and the marginalised and as a preliminary activity started conducting Menstrual Health Management (MHM) sessions in Kumily with the support of a few likeminded individuals.
Thus was born Maanushi Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Kumily which commenced its activities in December 2020. The subject of menstrual practices has been Taboo in India for ages and Lakshmy has faced a lot of challenges in her efforts. The foundation has been concentrating on driving sensitization campaigns on menstrual health education and sustainable menstrual practices, sexual and reproductive health and rights awareness, and climate change-related issues in the community.
Lakshmy has conducted MHM sessions in a tribal settlements, anganwadis, and government schools in Kumily. She has also conducted a session in one of the rural colleges in Tamil Nadu near the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. Lakshmy has also conducted online sessions during the pandemic due to the restrictions imposed during that period.
The MHM sessions conducted for small groups of about 20 to 30 women highlight the cultural taboos associated with menstruation and provide guidance on how to maintain hygiene during menstruation along with information about various products available. The MHM sessions are conducted under Eco Femme’s “Pad for Pad” program, which also has a provision of providing four reusable cloth pads for female children. So far, Lakshmy has provided cloth pads for more than a 100 such children.
Realising that the awareness sessions on menstrual health would be successful only when the women were economically empowered the team has also implemented economic activities for developing sustainable livelihood among its beneficiaries. Maanushi has been able to reach out to over 3500 women through awareness programmes and have distributed reusable cloth pads to over 800 menstruators. Through the rural incubator project and the Ecommerce platform, 9 women entrepreneurs are supported.
Lakshmy has been constantly supported and encouraged by her parents. Her mother was working with the forest department as a social worker engaged in conservation activities and her Dad operates his own Driving School in Kumily.
Lakshmy has been selected to the Global Changemaker Fellowship programme in recognition of the activities of Maanushi Foundation supported by Adeeb and Shafeena Foundation. CDF Global Changemaker Fellows were selected from applicants from across the world. The cohort has 40 fellows from 18 different countries. Lakshmy has also been selected for IIM Bangalore- NSRCEL Pre-Incubation for her project on a rural health centre.
Maanushi Foundation has also been invited to mentor at the Youth Connect Innovation Lab, an initiative empowering young entrepreneurs from Africa to launch and establish sustainable social ventures.
Apart from working for menstrual health awareness, Lakshmy is also engaged in creating awareness for people to switch to sustainable living habits. She also conducts small sustainability workshops and produces chemical-free soaps and bio enzymes. A postgraduate in English, Lakshmy is also a full-time copy editor, and author who has now enrolled for a Ph.D. program. While busy with her community work, Lakshmy has also brought out a compilation of her short stories named “On the Way Back Home”.
During the pandemic Lakshmy had carried out a food distribution drive, and had crowdsourced funds for the same. Lakshmy plans to utilise the remaining fund from crowdsourcing to develop a small network of producers or people who can make consumable products and sell them through other networks that they have.
We at “Kumily Calling” wish Lakshmy and her organisation as well as their partners all the very best in all their future endeavours.
To know more about Maanushi and its webstore, kindly check out:
Website: www.maanushifoundation.org
Webstore: https://maanushiforearth.myshopify.com/
