WUNRN
Women's Feature Service
India - New Delhi
By Alka Pande
A student learning to use the wall-mounted sanitary napkin vending
machine installed at school. (Courtesy: UNICEF\WFS)
Coimbatore (Women's Feature Service) -
Girls in their teens in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, brought up to consider
menstruation as something that is "unclean", are now educating their
mothers about how it is a normal part of growing up. This remarkable change has
been brought about by a small sanitary napkin vending machine that has been
installed in government schools here.
First of its kind, this machine has
given many adolescents the confidence to talk openly about menstruation and
menstrual hygiene - subjects that are still kept under wraps in most Indian
homes. Even today many Indian mothers are too embarrassed to talk to their
daughters about menstruation and many still continue to use pieces of cloth
that are washed and re-used. It is a well-established fact that the dropout
rate of girls in schools, particularly in villages and small towns, increases
after they reach puberty, and the difficulties of managing menstruation is seen
as an important contributory factor.
Over the years, the United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF) in
Interestingly, the idea of the vending
machine came, not from some development officer, hotshot engineer or marketing
whiz kid, but a young girl from Krishnagiri. In 2007, during a workshop on
hygiene organised by UNICEF Tamil Nadu in Kuppichiparai village in Krishnagiri,
Sukanya (name changed) innocently asked the authorities, "Sir, I saw this
machine at the railway station in which I put in a two rupee coin and it showed
me my weight. Is it possible to have similar machine that can give us sanitary
napkins?"
That got the experts thinking. After
extensive research, UNICEF Tamil Nadu contacted several companies that
manufactured vending machines and put the idea of making a customised sanitary
napkin vending machine to them. The first prototype was manufactured by a Chennai-based
company and installed at a government school in Kanchipuram. "But this
machine had many drawbacks. It did not have enough storage capacity. It was
also impossible to find out just how many napkins were left or if there were
any at all and sometimes the girls ended up losing their money. Also, the
machine was powered by electricity so whenever there was a power cut it stopped
functioning," recalls Arputhasamy Devraj, Water and Sanitation Officer,
UNICEF Tamil Nadu.
This led to further improvisations.
Finally, the Napivend, a coin-operated automatic sanitary napkin vending
machine, was created. Manufactured by Faraday Instruments, a Coimbatore-based
company, the machine is marketed through its subsidiary, Visaga Techno System.
All government schools in
The machine costs around Rs 14,000 and,
depending on the model, comes with a storage capacity of 20, 40, and 60 to 100
napkins. "We can supply machines as per specific requirements for
different places such as government hospitals, primary health centres, schools,
colleges, railway and bus stations, public toilets, highway petrol stations,
hostels, and so on," informs Parimala, Marketing Coordinator, Visaga
Techno System. However, at present these machines are operating only in
government-run girls' schools and colleges. "I think it's a good idea to
start with schools and colleges and later introduce it in public places. This
will help girls, who are the primary users, to overcome their inhibition in
walking up to one of these machines in a public space," she adds.
Sure enough, the NapiVend is a big hit
among the girls. Murugambal, 14, a student of Government Girls' High School in
Mekala Chinnampalli, is a happy teen. "The machine is very useful. I
regularly take home sanitary napkins for myself and for my mother," she
says.
While working on the concept of the
NapiVend, UNICEF also came up with the idea of another machine for the proper
disposal of used napkins. So, Faraday Instruments came up with a compact
electric incinerator. It costs Rs 18,000 and can destroy 100 napkins per day or
15 napkins in half an hour.
The benefits of the Napivend are there
for all to see. Observes Dr N. Shankar, who practices in Krishnagiri, "The
vending machine and incinerator have certainly helped girls in a big way. And
thanks to them, even their mothers are now aware of the ill effects of poor
menstrual hygiene. They have started following clean habits and also take care
to dispose off the soiled napkins properly."
Following the success of these machines
in Tamil Nadu, where these machines are installed in
But while the Napivend may have had a
positive impact, there is still a lot that can be done in this area, feels
Devraj. "The vending machine is just one aspect of hygiene. Clean drinking
water and water for toilets is also essential. For the want of facilities like
proper toilets, and so on, there are many who stop coming to school once they
start menstruating. Nonetheless, the Napivend will definitely check the drop
out rate of girls," he adds.
Incidentally, UNICEF Tamil Nadu has
also trained women Self-Help Groups in the state to make sterile sanitary
napkins. These napkins are sold loose at Rs 2 (US$1=Rs 47.14) each and not in
packets, so that rural girls can afford them.
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