Leo Club of Silchar conducts awareness on sustainable menstruation & use of menstrual cups

August 10: Menstrual hygiene is something the nation is concentrating broadly on in terms of women’s health. Environmental impact caused by sanitary waste is one of the significant topics in discussions today. A plastic, industrially manufactured, disposable sanitary pad requires about 500–800 years to decompose. Thousands of tons of disposable sanitary waste is generated every month all over the world.

It is in this backdrop that a 2-day awareness campaign on “Women’s health and hygiene: Use of menstrual cups” was conducted by Leo Club of Silchar at Lalit Jain Commerce College, Silchar and Women’s College, Silchar on 8 & 9 August 2019 respectively. In this connection, Leo came in contact with Upasana NGO from Mumbai. The volunteers of Upasana, Dipti, Sourabh and Rajender, from conducted these awareness campaign organised by the Leos.

While interacting with the college students, the volunteers said, “The sanitary napkins are made from plastic and hence non-biodegradable. Each conventional sanitary pad contains the equivalent of about four plastic bags. A thorough scientific study about the ingredients involved in the creation of disposable napkins is alarming. Better attention needs to be paid for the elimination of hazardous pads causing a threat to both the environment and women’s health. A women uses 5000/6000 pad in her life time. Now imagine how much of the environment are we polluting, leaving aside the problems that we face.”

Speaking to way2barak, Anupriya Deb, President of Leo Club of Silchar said, “It was a successful campaign where many girls understood the benefits of using a Menstrual Cup and decided to switch. We got huge response and both the session were highly interactive one. Lions Club of Silchar Lioness, Rotaract Club of Women’s College, Rotaract Club of G.C. College and other organisations joined this session and assured to carry this forward at their own levels. Dr Monica Deb, a member of our parent club and a renowned gynecologist of this region took part in these discussions. She also discussed many important issues about women’s health and hygiene.”

During the awareness campaigns at Lalit Jain and Women’s College Silchar, Menstrual Cups were also distributed among the girls who wanted to shift from pads to cups and asked them to guide others as well. The volunteers of Leo Club of Silchar also assured the girls that they will follow up and interact again with them to let know about the experiences after adopting the cups.