Tarun Kumar has earned the epithet ‘Padman of Kolhan’ thanks to his initiative of distributing sanitary napkins to young girls in schools and spreading awareness about menstrual health and child marriage in Jharkhand.
In Jharkhand‘s East Singhbhum district, Tarun Kumar moves by himself. A bulky carton of sanitary napkins strapped to a motorbike he drives — an unusual scene for a man — has now become a common sight in the district.
Away from the city’s bright lights, Kumar, 32, has been enlightening young women on menstrual hygiene and arranging for sanitary napkins for them in Kolhan, a division in Jharkhand where the population mostly comprises tribal communities. In his first campaign in 2017, he secured 5,163 napkins for girls reaching adolescence. This initiative was a record of sorts.
According to Kumar, sanitary napkins are a conduit for him to educate people about menstrual health, hygiene and problems that arise from early-age marriages. In order to widen the reach of his work, he established the Nishchay Foundation in 2017 along with a few of his friends. But his friends later left the organisation upon being asked by people why they were talking about menstrual issues openly. Undeterred, Kumar established stocks of sanitary napkins, which he called pad banks, in rural government schools. In these schools, girl students could simply use these pads when needed.
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“Many of them used sanitary napkins for the first time,” said Kumar. “Earlier, they would use pieces of cloth, which is not comfortable or hygienic.”
Kumar’s journey of providing sanitary napkins to girls started when he was working in a school in Potka village of East Singhbhum. During one of the workshops, a girl went outside and didn’t return for a long time. Two students sent after the girl took their time coming back to class, and once they did, they reported that the first student was sitting outside the washroom crying.
That was when Kumar realised the problems that young girls face during menstruation. He started a full-fledged campaign to provide sanitary napkins to them and also impart information about menstrual hygiene.
Sajid Ahmad, the principal of Dhatkidih Medical School at Galudih village in Ghatshila, East Singhbhum district, said he has known Kumar for over five years. When he asked Kumar to take workshops in his school, little did he anticipate the impact this would have.
“Now, I see that the girls are sensitised. But the boys are more sensitised as they are also going door to door, asking for donations for pads in schools,” Ahmad said, adding that the pad bank in their school never goes empty.
Kumar soon realised during the course of his campaign that villages lacked proper methods of safe disposal of used napkins. He fixed an incinerator in one of the schools though these machines are expensive.
Then one of his students invented a new machine, affordable and easy to make. It consists of a cemented chulha (oven), which is covered from the top and has a fire lit beneath. This turned out to be an effective invention, and topped a science and innovation competition held in the district.
Everything was going well until the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020. The campaign came to a grinding halt.
“I was receiving more calls for pads than I was about the virus,” recalled Kumar.
He started contacting local dealers for pads. What he could gather was insufficient. So he approached big dealers and informed them of his requirement for free napkins.
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“They started sending me pads, without any charge. Their kindness strengthened my belief in my work. They stood up for the cause selflessly,” said Kumar.
After he received the napkins, Kumar started going from village to village as an essential service provider. He was already known as the ‘Padman of Kolhan’, and his drive during the pandemic further cemented his image.
Kumar’s Nischay Foundation also got a mention in the Limca Book of Records for distributing sanitary pads to 5,240 girls from 120 villages of East Singhbhum district during the lockdown imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. “For 50 days from 14 April 2020 to 31 May 2020, around 20 volunteers walked and cycled to the villages making doorstep deliveries,” the citation said, adding that the campaign was launched with the support of 400 donors and 20 ‘pad human volunteers’ under the leadership of Kumar.”
Kumar’s next step was restoring environmental health since the pads contain non-biodegradable materials. He wanted to compensate for the loss to the environment, for which he started another campaign known as ek pad, ek ped (one pad, one tree).
Kumar and his students have so far planted over 30,000 saplings in the Kolhan region. Over the years, his campaign has reached thousands of girls and women, educating them on menstrual health and hygiene.
Commending his work, Musabani, a student, said, “When I first started having my periods, I didn’t go to school for many days and then Tarun bhaiya came to my village and told us that it is not something to be ashamed of. He also spoke about the ills of child marriage, and urged us to take care of the environment.”
Kumar has got little support from the government for his initiatives. His Nischay Foundation runs on public funds received through social media campaigns. But Kumar remains undaunted, firm in his belief that he can change lakhs of lives, one sanitary pad at a time.
Also Read: Kotwalia women break menstruation taboo
The lead image on top shows Tarun Kumar distributing sanitary pads in a girls’ school in the Potka district of Jharkhand. (Photo courtesy Tarun Kumar)
Kumar Gaurav, a Village Square Fellow 2023-24, is a multilingual audio-visual journalist based in Bihar.
