CSC has more than 35000 women entrepreneurs providing various G2C and B2C services to citizens specially in rural India. These CSCs provide digital inclusiveness and support in implementation of various government initiatives as digital literacy, financial inclusion , skill development e.t.c. CSCs has proven self sustainably rural enterprise providing employment to local populace CSCs now venture into a new social initiative “Stree Swabhimaan” where Sanitary Napkin Manufacturing Units are being setup to promote women health and hygiene.
This service will provide the employment to 8-10 other women. CSC is empowering its women entrepreneurs to not only provide sanitary pads at their centres but also to educate women of their society to overcome this social taboo and encourage the usage of sanitary pads. It shall provide unit for manufacturing Bio-degradable, eco-friendly sanitary pads at our units.

Brief about the Project:

• The project focuses on training and establishing a sanitary napkin unit for women and girls to promote menstrual hygiene and to support village level entrepreneurs and SHG groups.
• The intervention proposes to create ongoing livelihood options for 35000 women who will be engaged in the manufacturing process by developing their own entrepreneurial ventures at their CSC Centre.
• The product (sanitary napkin) will be sold under local brand name and marketed by VLEs
• The project also has a menstrual hygiene related awareness generation component and aims to increase usage of sanitary napkins among rural girls in schools and colleges by making the napkins available at the schools.

Project Initiation :

Swabhimaan Project is conceptualized to create avenues for the rural and semi-urban women to become self-reliant and also progress towards a healthy eco-friendly lifestyle. CSC’s initiatives like Mini Manufacturing Unit for Sanitary Napkin Units have been received very well amongst numerous Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs).

Girl students face great challenges in terms of hygiene and sanitation. Many schools have insufficient numbers of latrines, which are often poorly designed and maintained. For girls who are menstruating, these problems compound the difficulties posed by the inability to afford sanitary towels as well as cultural taboos around menstruation. As a result, many girls miss on average four days of school every month which is over a month in a year, meaning they fall behind in class and sometimes even drop out of school altogether. This is an added challenge to the already existing problems that lead to the high dropout rate of girl students in primary and secondary schools.

CSC SPV proposes to raise funds to provide sanitary pads to girl students in Rural Areas of Country. Village Level Entrepreneurs will distribute the pads to almost 1,000 girls in the primary and secondary schools in their village, encompassing girls from 7th to 12th grade under Swabhimaan project. These Women VLEs will organize trainings and question-and-answer sessions to give girls a forum to discuss related issues along with female teachers and other medical staff in the schools. This project will be on-going and is envisioned to address various issues of rural areas.

CSCSPV will provide, install and test the machines and train their Village Level Entrepreneurs and his/her team members. The main features for our Manufacturing facility for Sanitary Napkins are:

• This is an easy to set-up, Semi-automatic & manual process production line & its modular manufacturing unit is easy to maintain.
• Customized infrastructure and amenities that ensure timely accomplishment of entire production process.
• Produces 260mm wings Sterilized Sanitary napkins and 1500-2000 napkins can be produced in a day
• Generate employment (7-10 per manufacturing unit) and provide livelihood development opportunities. Indirectly generating self-dependent communities.
• As low as 20% of the manufacturing process needs electricity.

Model for Village Level Entrepreneurs a Social Kendra for their Villages:

• Village Level Entrepreneur will provide free of cost Sanitary Pads to School Girls (adolescent girls) of their village and town.
• Girls can also avail the same from their CSC Kendra’s of their village.
• CSC will provide Rs. 500/- per girls per year to their Women VLEs. (Subject to availability of donations)
• Verification of the same will be done by the Principal of that school.
• The Principal of the School will provide written confirmation about the distribution and number of beneficiaries.