Women on Wings and Dharma Life will jointly work on the sanitary pads program ‘Making periods normal’. On 21 November 2014, the partnership was sealed with the signing of the Memorandum of Cooperation, after two days of intense and productive meetings.
Making menstrual hygiene products available
Ronald van het Hof, MD Women on Wings India: “Dharma Life will train and coach female entrepreneurs to become great sales women. These entrepreneurs are from SEWA’s network in Munger and Bhagalpur area, in the state of Bihar. Through these sales women, menstrual hygiene products are made available to women in villages in these rural areas.” Adrianne Jonquière-Breure, Sanitary Pads Program Manager at Women on Wings continues: “I am very excited about this collaboration. We share the same goal: creating social and economic independence for women through jobs creation. Their business approach totally matches ours; it’s a pleasure working with them.”
TEJASVANI: Dharma Life Women Entrepreneur
Dharma Life is a social enterprise that creates women entrepreneurs at the village level and provides them with socially impactful products relevant to its causes. It trains individuals at the last mile to become Dharma Life Entrepreneurs and provides them with developmental support. Dharma Life partners with corporates and social organizations to provide a portfolio of products and services to meet the rural consumer’s needs.
Gaurav Mehta, Founder and CEO Dharma Life: “Our training model is called TEJASVANI which literally means ‘radiant’. It highlights the role of the female entrepreneur as a “torch bearer” of society. She is a Tejasvani who is confident, intelligent & a change maker. She creates impact not only on an economic level, but more so on a social level for society at large.
Where cultures meet in social progress
The sanitary pads program ‘Making periods normal’ is a partnership between Women on Wings and Dutch organizations Simavi and Rutgers WPF, and their Indian partners. Dharma Life and SEWA are among those Indian partners.
The program is made possible through funding from the Dutch Postcode Lottery. Last September the kick-off of the program took place in Bihar during a two day seminar.
