Taking a step towards the greater good for menstruators and at ending period stigma we MentX proudly took up a month-long campaign on the occasion of World Menstrual Hygiene Day. The campaign named "Bleed With Care" began on May 1st, 2021, and ended on May 31st, 2021. The campaign aimed at promoting the use of Green Menstrual Products and to create awareness and help clarify doubts around it.
And as we tried reaching out so that our campaign is widely reached we had a blessing that arrived. Pee Safe, a brand which started with their famous Toilet Seat Sanitizer Spray and now have a wide range of products related to personal hygiene, accepted to take part with us in our campaign and led us to a partnership with them. Here is how we indulged in the campaign.
We created a Bleed With Care survey which had more than 100 people who responded. Some of the insights from the survey are listed below:
● We had participants from various parts of Kerala, Delhi, Noida, Uttarakhand, and Maharashtra. The age groups ranged from age 12 to 57, the majority from the age group of 19 - 24.
● 57.1% were students, 26.9% working and the rest were unemployed. Most of them could afford menstrual products.
● 98.3% of the respondents have adequate facilities for sanitation in their homes.
● 96.6% agreed that they have adequate facilities in their school/college/workplace.
● 73.1% were aware of menstruation before their periods by their parents and friends mostly. The rest 26.9% were not aware of it.
● Most of the respondents used sanitary napkins of the brands such as Whisper, Stayfree are widely used. And only two respondents used cotton pads and cotton cloth.
● The pads used per cycle ranged from 10 to even 40 pads.
● 67% could afford the pads, 29.4% said it was manageable and the rest disagreed.
● 46.2% of them properly wrapped them in paper and disposed of, 42.9% burnt them, 18.5% flushed the cotton inside the pad, 5.9% threw them in a dustbin, and the rest flushed the entire pad.
● 48.7% of the respondents hadn't heard of Green menstruation/sustainable products.
● 45.4% were properly aware of menstrual cups/tampons/cloth pads rest either didn't know about it or had queries regarding these products.
● 89.1% of the respondents want to switch to eco-friendly products. Most of them need no assistance in buying those products.
2) High awareness was portrayed through our blog and through social media platforms. Articles and posts were circulated by sharing.
3) Our first Webinar: PCOD/PCOS was conducted on May 23, 2021. Our guest speaker for the Webinar was Dr. Fawseena Thakbeer BAMS, CIY, CSM who is an Ayurveda physician, yoga trainer, and counselor, and Smriti meditator who currently works at Ayurlakshya Ayurveda clinic Pathanamthitta, Kerala. The webinar covered all topics related to PCOD/PCOS in detail. It was a wonderfully interactive and informative session.
4)We conducted a "Draw the logo challenge" on May 28th, 2021 which had participants draw the logo of the campaign Bleed With Care and present it in their own creative way. The 40-minute activity conducted in the Zoom meeting called out all artists to show in their take on our logo and their work would be shared on our website. The beautiful logo of our campaign was designed by one of our team heads Devipriya Kishore.
5) The last activity was another webinar: "Sustainable Menstruation" which was held on May 30, 2021. The session was held through Google Meet. The session began with Ms.Rajasi Kulkarni Diwakar, who is a well-known Menstrual Health Educator, TedX Speaker, and the founder of "Bleed Red Go Green Program". This was a great discussion and where everyone's doubts were clarified by Rajasi ma'am. The Audience was really happy with what ma'am had to offer. After that, there was also a small introduction by Ms. Aashrina Jain from PeeSafe who is a part of the HaqSe Period campaign. She introduced the work done by their team.
All that begins well ends well and so the campaign ended with a very insightful response from our participants and team members. We were able to reach more than 10,000 people through various digital platforms even during the middle of a pandemic. This is a great start and stepping stone for our future endeavors and we are hoping that we'd still get the same and even more strong response in the future campaigns that we take up.
- Taken from Bleed With Care Campaign Report prepared by Ms. Avani Dineshan Kadoor
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