On forthcoming International Women’s Day on 8th March, sanitation and menstrual hygiene awareness programme will be held nationwide. “Bleed with pride, have a safe period” reads the tagline of the Pan-India event which will be flagged off by Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar at Lucknow. JCI India and Niine Movement are hosting the maiden ‘Run4Niine’ event in 500-odd cities across the nation.
The event is a part of 3-year old project ‘Prayas’ which strives to spread the message on menstrual hygiene. The organizers aim to educate girls and women to have a hygienic menstrual cycle through this programme given the fact that only 18% of women in India belonging to only urban areas use sanitary napkins. Actor Kumar is the national ambassador of the project initiated by Niine Movement. He highlighted the issues on the big screen through his movie ‘Padman‘.
Soujanya Hegde, one of the 25 national women ambassadors for the event, will lead walkathon held in 30-odd locations starting from Bhatkal up to Subrahmanya in zone XV of JCI.
Soujanya told reporters that JCI that has partnered with Lions Clubs, another voluntary service organization will take out a walkathon from Bunts Hostel Circle up to Lions Seva Mandir as part of the nationwide programme.
This is also endeavored on part of JCI to get into Guinness Book of World Records for most number of women gathering to spread social awareness message, she said.
She further added that the movement is important in that 82% of Indian women still have no access to the hygienic environment during their menstrual cycle. Niine Movement that also manufactures sanitary napkins has partnered with JCI to spread this message under Prayas.
This will be the biggest run ever for the cause of menstrual hygiene with participants taking part in the event, even through online registration. Through Prayas, an elaborate message that the menstrual cycle is a natural process and not a curse will be sent out, she concluded.