Because life is about more than two square meals

Chhitra Subramaniam, co-founder, Pad Squad, distributes sanitary napkins in Siddharth Nagar, Andheri West. Pics/Atul Kamble

Chhitra Subramaniam
Film producer and co-founder, Pad Squad

During the pandemic, while civil society collectives and NGOs were involved in distributing food supplies to needy households, a group of enterprising individuals trained their lens on menstrual hygiene. On June 1, film producer Chhitra Subramaniam, entrepreneur Mayuri Joshi Dhavale, ad film director Surya Balakrishnan, filmmaker Devashish Makhija, producer Monica Raheja, actors Gillian Pinto, Taranjit Kaur and Niiya Kumar christened themselves the Pad Squad. Kaur and Subramaniam first went to the Siddharth Nagar slum in Andheri to distribute the pads. "When people noticed that we were going into a basti during a pandemic, it got attention," says Subramaniam.

The initiative has grown into a citizen's movement and spread to 26 cities, including Ranchi, Kolkata, Ghaziabad, Kalimpong, Shimla, Lucknow, Amritsar, Chennai and Indore. The squad now has over 60 members, including men. Each volunteer dips into his/her personal network to raise pads. Until now, they have distributed over half a million pads in India. "These are a bunch of fearless people who are going into communities not just to distribute, but also educate women on menstrual hygiene," says Subramaniam, who was also instrumental in providing vanity vans for the Mumbai police, especially women personnel, who don't have access to toilets and work on long shifts, during the lockdown.

A volunteer gives women a tutorial on menstrual cups

Subramaniam says certain pockets in Mumbai, such as Malad's Ambujwadi and Malvan, given their sheer size, end up requiring more pads. "Volunteer Momita Roy had raised 46,000 pads on Independence Day. The monthly requirement is 35,000. Sometimes we can do it, sometimes we can't. We try our best."

Andheri West resident Arunima Chaturvedi Prasad did not see herself as a pad squadder when she put an empty box in her building for collection. "I had learnt about the initiative through a friend's Instagram post and just wanted to do my bit." To her surprise, she received more than 5,000 pads through donations.

Surya Balakrishnan, Taranjit Kaur, Niiya Kumar, Monica Raheja, Chhitra Subramaniam, Gillian Pinto and Mayuri Dhavale formed

Prasad is now a volunteer not only in Mumbai, but is involved in outreach initiatives in Palghar. "In those villages school-going girls and women use dried leaves, grass and newspapers because they can't afford pads. It's the reason they suffer from fungal infection, cervical cancer and urinary tract infection." Her first contribution was 50,000 pads that supported 1,600 girls in Palghar. The second time they offered 20,000 more. "There's no hard and fast rule about when the drive needs to be held. But we end up doing this at regular intervals because people are coming forward to help."

The team started with regular pads and later moved to reusable and biodegradable ones. Now, they are tapping into more sustainable solutions such as menstrual cups, that are said to last for at least five to 10 years and can save the environment from plastic waste. "We never force it, but if women are open to the idea, we train them on how to use and clean it, and and educate them on the benefits of it. Currently, Pad Squad is distributing over thousands of reusable cloth pads across Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kolkata."

Pad Squad also has supporters in France, Japan and Nigeria. Ekemi Inyang, a human rights activist, plans to devise a similar programme and gather more 'padsquadders' in Africa.