OUR STORY

Our Story

The Whispers

It was back in 2018 when during a conversation with her house-help, one of our CDF SRCC members got to know about the social issue of menstrual hygiene amongst the ones who go unnoticed, generally.

Onground Surveys

The fire was kindled & we couldn’t stop ourselves from exploring the situation of menstruation taboo on-ground. Starting with a slum on the banks of River Yamuna in Shastri Park, we surveyed around 15 areas in Delhi-NCR.

Getting Them Together

Realizing the lack of awareness and hesitation to even talk about “vo wale din”, we decided to do something about it. We started by talking to different groups of women and took their opinion on menstrual health and convinced them to convert this ‘Abnormal’ into ‘Normal’.

Achieving Our First Milestone

We started gathering resources. In a short span of 15 days, we were able to gather more than Rs. 150000, marking our first milestone in this direction.

Conducting Awareness Sessions

Next, we conducted street plays, community camps, personal interactions and health camps in a collaborative effort with several gynecologists educating women about menstrual health to bridge the gap of unawareness.

Initiated Donation Drives

Going forward, we initiated a series of Pad Donation Drives and Donated around “X” Sanitary Napkins to women impacting 2000+ menstruators, just in Shastri Park.

Community Interaction

We needed something innovative and constant. In order to sustain our project we interacted with different communities of women to independently take action and hence ensure the availability of sanitary pads.

Village Level Entrepreneurs

“Why not someone from the community?” was our pivot. “Someone who is native to that area, whom we could teach & train to handle the logistics and run the model as her own while simultaneously being financially stable!”. And that is how the idea of a Village-level Entrepreneur came up.

Ganga Di - Our Entrepreneur

Sooner than we expected, we met Ganga Di. Sweet but very outspoken, she knew the area inside out and had not only the need but also the desire to help others before helping herself. With days of training, she was ready to be our “Aarogya Entrepreneur”, and on 03rd February, 2019, Aarogya officially started its journey.

Conducting Training Sessions

Once we had found our ideal Village Level Entrepreneur, it was time to train Ganga Di so that she could handle all of the operations relating to demand and marketing of the Sanitary Napkins herself, So that she could persuade other women to accept sanitary pads as well, So that she could Lead the Way by setting an example for other Women Entrepreneurs.

Expansions

With the success of Aarogya in Shastri Park, we expanded to Sonia Camp in October and Race Course in November the same year with Ayesha Di and Anjum Di as our changemakers.

Coping Up With Covid

With the advent of Covid-19, our Aarogya Family was left in distress. Not losing our hope, we continued, with even greater strength and along with 3100+ sanitary napkins donated 200 masks, 350 sanitizers, 150 health kits and ration, to help the people in need besides Online Sessions & Webinars for 5000+ people in 11+ areas.

Expansion Drive During Pandemic

Pandemic or no pandemic, we continued to expand. In September 2020. We expanded to 3 more areas in Delhi and in collaboration with DBN to add 2500 more people in our family.

Aarogya Sanitary Napkins

In October 2020, we introduced the new face of Awareness, Affordability & Accessibility, our own Aarogya Sanitary Napkins which have biodegradable packaging, parallelly taking a step forward to promote environmental sustainability. More features relating to our sanitary pads can be added.

Expanding Our Reach To Bhopal

Going forward, we provided more than 150000 sanitary napkins to the underprivileged menstruators and government school students in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.

Smiles On The Faces Of Our Aarogya Family

Every step of the journey has been worthwhile. But nothing is better than those smiles on the faces of our Aarogya Family.