Feminine hygiene company Stayfree and ad agency DDB Mudra Group have partnered up to help women from an undeveloped and uncivilized upbringing that have been systematically marginalized to build up their education and self-esteem.
MENSTRUATION: BLESSING OR CURSE?
While most women worldwide consider the menstruation period their least productive and pleasant time, the situation in India begs to differ when it comes to sex workers.
Periods have long been a taboo in India, menstruating women are believed to be impure and are still excluded from social and religious events. In recent years, these archaic ideas have been increasingly challenged, especially by urban educated women.
For exploited sex workers, their periods are their only cherished free times, when they are not forced to work, the only time they actually look forward to.
MAKING THE MOST OF IT
Through collaborations with professional skill trainers, a vocational training program was created to educate participants with skills that could help them sustain themselves outside of the sex trade.
Learning was condensed into 3-day training modules so that the three days of their periods can be turned into three days of learning and overcoming their situation.
This way, with the help of local NGO Prerana, they managed to launch the #StayfreePeriod trainings in the red district of Mumbai, where
women learned skills ranging from candle-making, embroidery, henna-art, soft-toy making, and basic beautician skills.
A CRUCIAL DIFFERENCE & UPGRADED LIVES
The program also helped women set up stalls in flea markets and malls to display the products of their newly acquired skills in an effort to create more awareness and support for the initiative, helping them gain a trustworthy source of income, where they are cherished for their abilities, and not forced into activities out of fear and desperate times.
The initiative has been able to convert more than 100,000 period days into days of learning and has reached out to more than 11,000 women in the sex trade, to help them with their dream.
Credits:
Brand: Stayfree
Campaign: Project Free Period
Agency: DB Mudra Group
Creative: Rahul Mathew, Shagun Seda, Kapil Tammal, Sharad Das Gupta, Aashna Gopalkrishnan, Faraaz Ansari, Vinay Singh
Account Management: Aditya Kanthy, Rajiv Sabnis, Kim Das, Nikita Tambay, Vinisha P., Megha Jaiswal, Megha Sharma, Qaid Vora
Account Planning: Toru Jhaveri, Sanchari