Nellore 'padman' breaking taboos around menstrual hygiene
NELLORE: Poor access to sanitary products and lack of knowledge on menstrual hygiene makes it difficult for girls to attend school every month for a period of time. Identifying challenges related to menstruation, a government teacher from Nellore district provided sanitary pads and created awareness on menstruation to girls.
He also distributed sanitary pads starting from his school and extended the programme to three districts that includes Nellore, Chittoor and Prakasam districts. He along with his wife, who is also a government teacher, spends around Rs 35,000 to Rs 40,000 every two months for distributing sanitary pads to girls in all government schools.
Mavuluri Suresh Babu (58), hailing from Railway Feeders Road from Nellore city, has been working as a school assistant (Telugu) in a government high school located at Venduru in Gudur mandal of Nellore district. He has observed the difficulties of girls to attend school during the menstruation which made them skip school for three to five days.
“I had observed girls skipping school for 3 to 5 days in a month. Since they miss a few classes, they lag behind in studies. I had discussed the issue with my wife and started distribution of sanitary pads from Venduru Government High School. Initially, I had set up a box with packs of sanitary pads in the staff room of the school and created awareness among girls about menstrual hygiene,” said M Suresh Babu. “I had asked the girl students to pick up sanitary pads from the box as per their requirement for one month,” he added.
After creating awareness, Suresh Babu distributes sanitary pads sufficient for a year to girls in the school. He has been distributing the sanitary pads to girls for the last five years. He distributed pads to students in more than 200 government schools in three districts. He used to travel with sanitary pads in his own vehicle while moving to create awareness among girls in a new school and start distribution there itself.
Y Vijaya Lakshmi, wife of Suresh Babu, who is also a government teacher, has been supporting him for extending the programme. She has been supporting her husband in his mission.Though he is going to retire next year, he said his campaign will continue. “I am going to retire next year. But the programme will not stop. In fact, I will get more time to extend the programme after my retirement,” he explained.He appeals to the government and private schools to contact him on 9490323046 for distribution of sanitary pads to girls in their schools.