To pay it forward.
In 2018, the Chahal Foundation picked an important cause to support. During my last trip to India, I learned that schoolgirls face profound disadvantages and drop out of school early at a disproportionate rate.
We asked ourselves, how could we find an effective way to help keep girls in school so that they can graduate and ultimately go on to college? We focused on one barrier described to us: some girls could not afford or access menstrual-hygiene supplies. Missing school during menstruation could leave them progressively farther behind and contribute to their leaving school.
So, we partnered with Enactus H.R. College in India and contributed funds needed to start a joint initiative, Inaayat. Sheetal Shetty, then Director of Business Development at Enactus H. R. College, described it this way:
Inaayat is dedicated to strengthening girls’ sense of dignity and self-esteem by making and providing sustainable menstrual hygiene solutions and health education. Our vision is to ensure that every girl and woman will have ready, feasible access to reusable hygiene supplies.
Inaayat has two aspects:
Inaayat trains rural women to manufacture sanitary napkins, thereby providing livelihood and employment opportunities for women of the community. A scalable business model is developed for village-based micro enterprises, where women are trained in stitching and business management skills.
We identify leaders from the community who undergo a standardized training process and can then impart health education training and also create awareness about our safe and affordable menstrual kits and aid in their distribution. For each kit sold, the Inaayat leader gets a commission.
Our progress in 2018:
We had approached other NGOs for collaboration with us in rural, semi-urban and urban areas in Maharashtra. We also planned to subsidize the kits for the underprivileged.
I was honored to be a founding member of this important social cause. I encouraged people at the time to volunteer or donate because the work had the ability to enrich a generation of lives.
There is a line I return to: “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
We make a life by what we give. That was what I wanted for my birthday.
