WARANGAL: Any disregard for menstrual health is tantamount to disdaining a social illness.
It is with this sense of responsibility that Dr Kadiyam Kavya, a Pathologist, had launched a crusade against the medical neglect of health and hygiene of women, especially those in the rural areas.
Kavya became a torchbearer for women’s health on her own, without harping on the political power that naturally amassed around her family owing to the positions held by her father, Kadiyam Srihari, who was the Deputy Chief Minister of Telangana until recently.
Blood loss, anaemia, and the lack of awareness about menstrual hygiene among rural women triggered an anxiety in the mind of the young doctor, who switched gears from being just a diagnostic expert, to taking up socially and medically appropriate proactive steps to help the needy.
Dr Kavya is a voracious reader, staunch humanist, keen observer, and a prolific writer. The said mission began right when she was a college student.
Her dedication to the cause was proven when she first took up the project of menstrual hygiene in the government schools of Telangana.
Later, the government moulded her project into a scheme, benefitting several girl students across the State.
Enthused with her success, Dr Kavya went ahead to realise her dream of educating three generations of women with her pet project pertaining to menstrual hygiene.
Speaking to Express, Dr Kavya said that several women and young girls in the villages of erstwhile Warangal district were under threat of acquiring infections and diseases as they continued to use cloths during menstruation owing to abject poverty and lack of awareness about sanitary pads.
“We decided to create awareness about the issues pertaining to menstruation. We visit villages to elaborate on the threats of using cloth during periods,” she said.
She opined that the menstrual hygiene campaign was the most successful project initiated in the year 2017. “We conducted more than 50 awareness programmes and distributed over 100,000 sanitary napkins for free to schoolgirls and women in the rural areas,” she said.
Apart from the menstrual hygiene project, the Kadiyam Foundation has taken up an initiative to tackle anaemia among pregnant women.