Having grown up in a middle class family in India, this came as a shock to me – 88% of women in India do not have access to sanitary napkins. They resort to using rags, ashes, newspaper, dried leaves and husk according to a study by AC Nielsen. According to an article in Fastcoexist, girls who attain puberty in rural areas miss school or drop out because of their periods. As a result of unhygienic practices, more than 70% of the women suffer from reproductive tract infections, increasing the risk of contracting associated cancers according to Guardian.

Arunachalam Muruganantham, a workshop helper who lived below poverty line in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu had other plans for sanitary towels. He has created a low cost machine for making sanitary napkins. He wanted to make a low cost napkin for his wife who couldn’t afford to buy any. Creating this machine has been an arduous process for Arunachalam. He tried to get feedback from his wife and sisters who refused to discuss his creations. He approached female medical students who weren’t responsive as well. Discussing your menstrual cycle with a stranger wasn’t something any woman that Arunachalam approached was ready to do. He was experimenting with cotton at the time. At his wits end, he did some usability testing by wearing it himself and using a bladder and tube contraption to release goats blood onto his creation.

He tested different materials over the course of two years and figured that the napkins were made from cellulose from the bark of a tree. After getting some samples of the raw material from various companies, he figured out how to make the napkins. He realized that creating cellulose from pine wood fibre was no simple task. The machine needed to do that was close to half a million dollars hence the dominance of big companies in the sanitary napkin market. It took Arunachalam 4 years to create a cheaper machine to do the same task. The machine could make 1000 napkins a day. The machine was awarded the best innovation for the betterment of society by the Institute of Technology in Chennai.  The napkins cost $0.25 (13 rupees) for a package of eight.

Women using Arunachalam's creation to make low cost sanitary pads.

Arunachalam doesn’t sell his product commercially. He provides sustainable livelihood to many rural women. His company helps rural women buy one of the $2500 machines through a loan. Around 600 machines are installed across 23 states. The idea is to create small industries all over India run by women creating a product that helps women. Arunachalam created a revolution around a topic that is considered a taboo. This system driven model will hopefully create a change in the way Indian women view hygiene and health.

References

As the buying power of the Indian consumer grows in the coming years, it is time that they start making educated choices about what they are consuming. The market is flooded with products from all kinds of producers that clumps mass produced industry made products with the ones produced by the fast dwindling race of artisans and craft persons. A lot of the products made by artisans are sold by middlemen who raise the prices of handmade items. So even though we might pick up those handcrafted chai cups thinking that the handsome sum we are putting down is going to  somehow reach the potter who so deftly whipped up the these cups, it will essentially land up in some oily middleman’s pocket.

Here is where we look for the items with fair trade certification. Fair trade is a social movement that promotes paying fair prices to the artisans and farmers or simply the maker of the goods and reinforces good and safe working environment and sustainable trading practices. It also kicks out the oily middlemen. The International Resources for Fairer Trade (IRFT) is a non profit organization that was founded in India in 1995. IRFT gives farmers and artisans direct access to the mainstream market. They set up an Not for Profit company called Shop for Change in collaboration with Traidcraft Exchange from the UK. Shop for Change has four main functions – certification, business services, producer services and awareness raising. The Shop for Change Mark means that when you buy a product with that certified mark, the product is ethically and environmentally sourced and the farmer or the artisan is receiving a fairer deal for the product.

Fair Trade is a concept that is well known to the western consumers but is picking up slowly but surely in India. Recently the entire cast and crew of a Bollywood movie called “Turning 30” pledged their support to fair trade and have been seen in the recent weeks wearing ‘Turning 30′ T-Shirts made from Shop for Change Fair Trade certified cotton. Globally consumers spent $4.1 billion on Fair Trade products in 2008. Fair trade has a ready market in India with its huge unorganized sector where even small retailers can make use of this system and get just returns. Corporation in India are looking at Fair trade and the possibilities that it creates. IRFT already has brand partners like Levis Strauss, Nike, Marks and Spencer, Reebok and Burberry. The most recent campaign by IRFT and Shop for Change, with a NGO in Netherlands called Hivos is the Pro Sustain campaign that shows business houses the profitability of buying Fair Trade both for its internal use as well as retail.

The first fair Shop for Change product was cotton and clothes designed from it by designer Anita Dongre. Then in November 2010, fair trade mango, cashew nuts and amla products were also introduced. The other organization that swears by fair trade are the blind weavers of Grameen Shramik Pratishthan in Latur. They made Rs 1,03,000 in the Kala Ghoda festival in five days versus two months they would ordinarily take to make that amount of money. Design shops like Baaya Design Studio that creates home decor items from folk art and crafts for urban buyers also use the Fair Trade label since it conveys their social agenda and pricing to the consumers without further explanation.

In a country with such a rich legacy of indigenous products and one of the fastest growing economies and buying power, Fair Trade is an inevitable trade practice. Even though there is an active criticism of fair trade as a practice that impedes growth and doesn’t adequately challenge the current trading system, it is a system with its own ideals and principles and we can see atleast the Indians nodding in unison to affirm the fact that we need Indian artisans and farmers to get their share and prosper in national and international markets sooner than later.

Shop for Change Blog

Most people in the US of A, may have already heard about the Uniform Project. But for those few who still don’t know, here is a quick update. Uniform Project is the brain child of this quirky, fun and fabulous girl called Sheena Matheiken from Brooklyn, NY. She was born and raised in South India and like most desis in the US, came here to study and then work. Her concept for the Uniform Project is simple. She has decided to wear one dress for a whole year as an exercise in sustainable fashion.

She has 7 pieces of the same black dress designed by her friend and fashion designer Eliza Starbuck, one for each day of the week [incase you were wondering when she does her laundry]. But she wears them in different ways everyday. Every day she reinvents the dress with layers, accessories and all kinds of accouterments, the majority of which are vintage, hand-made, or hand-me-down goodies either donated or bought on ebay. The point of this entire year long exercise is to raise funds for a charity called Akanksha Foundation, a grassroots non-profit founded in Mumbai in 1990 through the volunteered efforts of college students devoted to bringing education to children living in the slums.

She is on her 270^th day today and has already risen over $53,000 in funds. And you can check out her daily outfit updates and make a donation at

http://theuniformproject.com/home/daily/Transverse-planes.html?month=January

Part of this entire adventure which I am sure Sheena had intended was to raise awareness about education of underprivileged children in India. And using design and sustainability to do it, worked perfectly well in the whole realm of “doing the right thing”. But the idea is so fabulous that the awareness has spread wide and how? Interview with BBC, appearance at the London Fashion week, fund raisers in Ireland, New York and now our very own Mumbai, India.

A week ago Sheena was in India, traveling to check out Akanksha projects, meet the children in person, and she where her project funds are actually going to be used. The trip turned out to be an opportunity for Vogue India, Bungalow 8 and Akansha to collaborate with Sheena on yet another fundraiser to help the cause. And what is amazing about this fundraiser is that it is still in tandem with the entire concept of Sustainable Design.

Six of India’s cool fashion designers took on the challenge to convert old saris into fabulous new modern-day wear, accessories and footwear. I mean how cool is it to have zardozi on your ballet slippers? All the proceeds from the sales at the event go to Akanksha’s cause. The designers included Little Shilpa, Miriam Sterhlau, Dadablui, Xylem, Sanchita and the amazing Indian couture guru, James Ferreira. I really wish I were visiting Bombay soon to check out the goodies and instantly add them to my wardrobe. What better way to get some retail therapy than at the cost of good karma?

For more information on the Uniform Project visit http://www.theuniformproject.com/