- Ujaas, an initiative of Aditya Birla Education Trust, will partner with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to work towards advancing women’s health and economic empowerment in rural areas of Maharashtra
Ujaas, an Aditya Birla Education Trust initiative, has partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to work on women’s health and economic empowerment in Maharashtra.
Through this initiative, Ujaas will work with 100 Women Self–Help Groups (SHG) in rural Maharashtra to help generate income sources for women by providing training to manufacture cloth pads at Gram Panchayat, schools, Zilha Parishad, Community halls etc. and create awareness, accessibility, and availability of period products for the rural population at affordable prices.
Ujaas will also empower women with financial literacy and undertake research studies on issues related to women’s health and hygiene. The SHGs will be trained to manufacture and market cloth sanitary napkins for Online and On ground sales. Moreover, Ujaas will also conduct a workshop to educate the women of SHGs on menstrual health and hygiene management.
Since its inception in December 2021, Ujaas has reached out to 79,447 beneficiaries, conducted 2,070 awareness sessions, and distributed 815,998 menstrual pads, covering 378 Schools across 13 locations.
In response to this partnership, Advaitesha Birla, Sociopreneur and Founder of Ujaas, stated, As Ujaas grows we are proud to forge a meaningful partnership with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to work on women’s health and economic empowerment. This work can have an impact not only to empower women through knowledge and financial literacy, but also contribute to the country’s economic growth. Together we want to drive impactful change, provide opportunities for livelihood generation and increase access to hygienic period products to improve women’s health. At Ujaas we make the change one girl at a time”.
Women have a critical role to play in India’s growth trajectory and the Government of India is committed to transforming women’s development into women-led development. We are inspired by this mission and honoured to support India on this journey, by accelerating progress towards a more gender-equal world with a focus on new enterprise creation, skilling, training, access to markets and greater participation in the labor force, as critical levers to driving greater economic empowerment for women. We are excited about partnering with Ujaas to advance these goals in Maharashtra.” said Hari Menon, India Country Director, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
About Ujaas
Ujaas, an initiative by Aditya Birla Education Trust aims to create a positive and sustainable impact in the menstrual health landscape in India by reducing period poverty and by empowering adolescent girls and women to adopt effective menstrual health and hygiene management practices. At Ujaas, we understand problems related to the affordability of sanitary products and sustainability. With our distribution channels and awareness campaigns, we want to propel a legacy of CHANGE and form a cycle of sustainability that is passed down to generations. Menstrual health is one of the most glaring but under-prioritized issues, which unfortunately gets compartmentalized as a woman’s problem instead of getting noticed as a public health challenge & a barrier to progressive nation-building.