Since November 2013, Shanta Gevali manages a new business unit of sanitary pads in Tuljapur. She runs her business with 10 women and currently they already produce 1,500 pads per day. Shanta is one of the entrepreneurs of SSP/SURE, a network of 1,000 female entrepreneurs in the districts Latur and Osmanabad. The machines and the raw materials are supplied by Aakar Innovations. Women on Wings brought these parties together mid 2013.
Last December, a team of Women on Wings experts, Marischka Leenaers, Machtelt Schelling, Jan Anne Schelling and Patrick van Son, worked with the team members of SSP/SURE and Aakar Innovations to improve the production set up and work on the awareness and marketing of sanitary pads. The team developed a picture book and a training manual on menstrual hygiene and the use of pads.
Shanta has tremendous faith in the capacity of women to run successful businesses: “It’s not important how high you can fly in the sky, but what matters is with how many others can you fly”. Shanta believes that a woman can prove that she can play the roles of creator, feeder and survivor on this earth, if only she gets the freedom to think.
Shanta gained business development training from SSP. Shanta is willing to be the entrepreneur in the next phase and invest in a business unit, including awareness, marketing and sales of the sanitary pads.
Picture: Shanti (right) and some of her colleagues at the Tuljapur sanitary pads business unit
