P&G announces its commitment towards menstrual hygiene at the India Economic Summit by WEF
New Delhi [India] Oct 04 (ANI/NewsVoir): Procter & Gamble (P&G), today pledged to extend the impact of its flagship educational 'Mother-Daughter Menstrual Health & Hygiene' program to five crore girls by the end of 2022.
ANI
Oct 04, 2019 15:07 IST
New Delhi [India] Oct 04 (ANI/NewsVoir): Procter & Gamble (P&G), today pledged to extend the impact of its flagship educational 'Mother-Daughter Menstrual Health & Hygiene' program to five crore girls by the end of 2022.
Madhusudan Gopalan, MD & CEO, P&G South Asia, announced this commitment during a session on 'Ending Menstrual Taboos' at the India Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2019. He also invited government, corporate, NGOs, media, and entertainment sectors to collaborate on increasing awareness, acceptance and access to hygienic menstruation practices in India.
"Over the past three decades, we have educated more than 2.5 crore girls in India on menstrual hygiene through our 'Mother-Daughter Menstrual Health & Hygiene Program'. We pledge to double this impact in the next four years and educate over 5 crore adolescent girls on menstrual hygiene by 2022. This is in line with our efforts to increase awareness and acceptance of healthy menstruation practices, and our vision to achieve 100 per cent menstrual hygiene in India. When we started our journey in India three decades ago, the number of women using sanitary protection was less than one crore. Our efforts to create awareness and education have been critical to increasing this number to more than seven crore women today", said Madhusudan Gopalan, MD & CEO, P&G South Asia.
Madhusudan also emphasized that multi-stakeholder partnerships are imperative to achieve 100 per cent menstrual hygiene. "Less than 20 per cent women in India follow menstrual hygiene practices; even in urban India, the adoption is only around 50 per cent. Awareness, acceptance, and access are the biggest barriers in achieving 100 per cent menstrual hygiene. The Government, corporate, NGOs, media & entertainment sector each have unique strengths, and we must collaborate towards this common goal to achieve 100 per cent menstrual hygiene in the country", he added.
P&G through its brand Whisper began the journey to normalize menstruation in India about three decades back; it was the first brand to show a sanitary pad and the first to mention the word 'periods' in advertising.
At that time, when the brand wanted to advertise on prime time, TV channels thought it was an inappropriate product to advertise. Whisper then got special permission, to become the first sanitary pad brand to advertise on prime time on Indian television.
The company is renowned for taking menstrual taboos head-on. Back in 2014, Whisper's widely acclaimed award-winning #TouchThePickle was one of the first campaigns where any brand or institution in India, took on the taboos surrounding periods at a mass scale.
The campaign not only sparked conversations on period taboos but also drove acceptance of this conversation among the older generation which is supposedly the most immersed in these deep-rooted traditions and taboos.
Since then, the brand has come up with many campaigns such as #LikeAGirl, #SitImproper, #MeriLifeMereRules, which break societal taboos on periods.
This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/NewsVoir)
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