Dollar Industries will install 100 sanitary vending machines in schools for girl child hygiene

Ambar Bhattacharya, abptakmaa, Kolkata, 8th August 2019 : Dollar Industries as a part of their CSR initiative, in association with SEED (Society for Socio Economic and Ecological Development) has launched a campaign BE FREE BE YOU to improve the menstrual hygiene of the underprivileged girls where sanitary napkin vending machines will be installed. These machines will provide good quality sanitary napkins at a nominal cost.

The BE FREE BE YOU campaign was launched by popular actress Debadrita Basu who portrays the character of Joyee, in the much hyped Bengali mega serial Joyee with the presence of Ankit Gupta (VP, Dollar Industries), Vedika Gupta (VP, Dollar Industries) and Somnath Bhattacharya (ED, SEED).

This initiative has been undertaken with the motto of decreasing the school dropout of underprivileged girls due to lack of proper menstrual hygiene management facilities. In a study it is mentioned 23 million girls dropout of school annually in India and the reason includes unavailability of sanitary napkins and logical awareness of menstruation.

Vedika Gupta said, BE FREE BE YOU is a passion project for Dollar. A comprehensive study on menstrual 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 hygine 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 accross schools in West Bengal as the first phase of this initiative. 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. Schools like Kendua Mahendranath Girls HS, Sanghamitra Vidyalaya, Khidirpur Muslim HS, Lajpat Balika Vidyalaya, Jawahar Lal Nehru Balika Vidyalaya, Fatepur Hindi Nagari Pracharak Vidyalaya, Bansdroni Chakdah Vidyamandir, Dumdum Road Govt Sponsored HS, Sri Ramkrishna Sarada Sangha Balika Vidyalaya, Giribala Sircar Balika VIdyalaya, Alipore Multipurpose Govt Girls School, Badamtala Madhyamik Balika Vidyamandir and Oriental Seminary School. Publicity : Sagittarius Communication. Photography : Biswajit Saha.