Kerala women's group sends sanitary napkins to flood-hit J&K

Kerala's women self-help group 'Kudumbashree' has sent 10,000 self-made sanitary napkins for women living in relief camps in flood-hit Jammu and Kashmir.
Volunteers of Kudumbashree units in Kannur, Kochi and Kottayam toiled hard for three days to make the napkins within the short period of time for the flood-victims.
The consignment has been sent to Kashmir, Kudumbashree Executive Director K B Valsalakumari told PTI here.
The low-cost but high-quality Kudumbashree napkins, which the network have been producing on commercial scale for some time, will be a relief for hundreds of women living in refugee camps in the flood-hit valley, she said.

"It is our humble contribution to the flood victims in Kashmir. There may not be any shortage of money, food and cloths at the camps as large number of people and institutions are donating them. That is why we thought of a different supply," she said.
She said though Kudmubashree's napkins are not made using any high-end technology, they are of good quality.

"Of the total 10,000 napkins, 5,000 were manufactured at our three units in Kannur district and the rest were made at Kochi and Kottayam," she said.
Though Kudumbashree wants to acquire an advanced napkin manufacturing machine which could produce 6,000 napkins in an hour, the network does not have the resources to buy the same as it costs around Rs one crore.

"If corporate companies provide finanical aid to buy such a machine for us through their corporate social responsibility scheme, it will be a great help for a large number of women," Valsalakumari said.