28-year-old Sombodhi Ghosh, from India once realised the female helpers around him were being shunned during their monthly menstrual cycle, the incident ultimately led him on an unexpected career path. In 2011, Sombodhi co-founded Aakar Innovations (Aakar), a company which creates low-cost sanitary napkins. Now, he plans to teach rural women to make and sell them, offering livelihood opportunities, and destigmatising periods in the process. Last month, Sombodhi, – along with Jaydeep Mandal, 28, and Dr. Meera Singh,63, both from India, and 24-year-old Andrew Yin, from Malaysia – was named as finalist in this year’s Project Inspire, the social impact competition run by Singapore Committee for UN Women and MasterCard. Here, Sombodhi discusses the notion of empowerment, and his commendable work.
As per the words of Sombodhi-
“Since inception, we have been busy creating a cost- and energy-efficient production unit for rural villages, where electricity is scarce and inaccessible to most. It’s also able to manufacture 100% biodegradable sanitary pads. Now, with operations in 10 locations, we’re ready to move to our next phase; training women entrepreneurs to run sustainable micro-enterprises, selling sanitary pads to their communities.”
Please click to watch this video entry by the Aakar Venture- Project Inspire Aakar.
