Aurangabad: Urmila Pradhan, a girl student from a Zilla Parishad-run school in the Ambelohal village in the Gangapur taluka of Aurangabad district, is proud of her school for taking a measure, which she believes will do away with the social stigma that is associated with the menstrual periods as well as the hesitation in publicly seeking sanitary pads.In a progressive measure, the school has installed three sanitary pad vending machines and disposal units for the benefit of girl students. The school has over 300 girl students and becomes the first school in the district to take such machines. “We speak about different health issues openly but rarely talk about menstrual hygiene. I feel that the installation of sanitary pad vending machines will pave the foundation for it,” said Urmila.School principal A B Vyahalkar said she sought the help of the Endress+Hauser Group for the installation of the desired machines under its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. “Menstrual periods and sanitary napkins are still considered as forbidden topics in our society. The issue becomes more serious in rural areas where young girls are found to be more vulnerable. To address these issues in an effective way, we decided to install the sanitary pad vending machines,” he said.The ZP-run school at Ambelohal has a strength of over 800 students, of which nearly half are girls. The school, which offers education up to STD X, has a major chunk of girls studying in STD VII to STD X, which are the target beneficiary group for the concerned machines. Besides, the female teachers and non-teaching staff of the school are also going to benefit from the newly-installed machines.“For now, we are offering sanitary pads for free and the same practice is likely to be continued due to the CSR help. Adjacent to each sanitary napkin vending machine are independent units of disposing machines for these pads, which have also been put in place to get properly rid of the used napkins,” said Vyahalkar.Jay Ghatnandrekar, a schoolteacher, said that a special awareness programme about the use of sanitary pad vending machines was organized for the benefit of the girl students. “The girl students were educated about using the new machines during the awareness programme. The girl students had lots of doubts about their menstrual health and the same was also addressed during the workshop,” he said.It may be noted that the National Commission for Women (NCW) in October 2014 had requested the State Higher and Technical Education department to set up sanitary napkin vending machines. Terming the recommendation as a “step in facilitating the hygiene and dignity of girl students”, the NCW had requested the State Chief Secretary to take suitable measures to install such machines.

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