Category: Maternal and child health

International Youth Day, plenty of reasons to celebrate

By Professor Beate Kampmann, Professor of Paediatrics and Director of IGHI’s Centre for International Child Health (CICH)

August 12 is International Youth Day.

This special day was created by the United Nations in 1999 to recognise efforts of the world’s youth in enhancing global society.

The theme of this year has been put forward by the UN as “The Road to 2030: Eradicating Poverty and Achieving Sustainable Production and Consumption”.  In my opinion this theme sets out an over-ambitious agenda, and many of our International Youth might feel overwhelmed by the responsibilities it implies.  It represents a far-reaching goal, not only for “Youth”, defined as 15-24 year olds, but for people of all ages.

Eradicating poverty? Since when have adolescents shouldered the burden of poverty eradication? What influence do they have on sustainable production and consumption, when too often they are victims of child labour themselves and their consumption is determined by powerful industries and the politics and expectations of the societies in which they happen to grow up?

  • The UN should not be asking or quietly demanding International Youth work towards eradication of poverty, sustainable production and consumption.
  • This remains the job and responsibility of members of society who own power, money and who wield political clout. It is they whose job it is to ensure that the future of the “International Youth” is less affected by these global issues.

However, there are many examples of important contributions of “International Youth” that ought to be acknowledged and celebrated on August 12.  In many resource-poor settings, adolescent girls and boys work tirelessly for their families to at least contribute to the amelioration, if not eradication, of the poverty in their individual households. Many are exploited in doing so, sacrificing their own educational opportunities. (more…)

From women’s health to women empowerment

By Guest blogger Natasha Chainani 

With it being International Womens Day this week, I thought it would be apt to recognise breakthrough innovations in women’s hygiene that have been doing the rounds of social media lately. Even more so, it would be apt to recognise that women’s health need not be pioneered by women alone by highlighting the efforts of a common man turned social entrepreneur and frugal innovator in rural India taking the feminine hygiene industry by storm.

Photo courtesy of Asian Development Bank, Flickr

In a country where sanitary products remain a luxury and accessible to those who can afford to buy pricier, international brands, women still resort to traditional methods – often unhygienic and at risk of disease[1]. Although the momentum to spread awareness around menstruation and feminine hygiene is picking up, stigma to talk about it by households and the larger society largely remains. Rightly so, these barriers continue to impact improvement efforts around women’s health in developing countries.

Arunachalam Muruganantham (Photo courtesy TED@Bangalore)

Enter Arunachalam Muruganantham. Hailing from a simple family in Coimbatore, India and educated till school1, he was brought to realise the dire state of feminine hygiene in rural, low resource and poor communities when he noticed his wife having to choose between purchasing family meals and monthly sanitary supplies[2].  A market research study by AC Nielsen evaluated that 88% of women in India resort to using unhygienic practices such as ash, dried leaves and newspapers when faced with a lack of sanitary supplies, putting 70% of these women at risk of reproductive tract infections and associated cancers[3]. Driven by what he saw, Arunachalam Muruganantham set out on an uphill task to develop low-cost sanitary towels from available resources. After years of development and product-testing trials, he now holds the patent rights for a machine that not only manufactures low-cost, hygienic sanitary towels but its user-friendly technology has created jobs for women in an industry setting he built. The manual machine costs about £723, employs 10 women, produces 200-250 cotton pads and can supply 3000 women at a cost of £0.025 for each towel1. Small-scale businesses and not-for-profit organisations currently buy these machines to directly manufacture and sell these sanitary towels across 27 states in India3. (more…)