Advaitesha Birla

Advaitesha Birla On Empowerment With Ujaas, Her Initiative On Menstruation

Meet 18-year-old Advaitesha Birla who founded Ujaas to spread menstrual health awarenessAdvaitesha Birla, a Class 12 student, has launched Ujaas, a non-profit organisation, to spread awareness about menstrual health and hygiene through school workshops, distribution of sanitary pads, and training girls in manufacturing pads.

The youngest member of the Birla family, Advaitesha Birla, daughter of Kumar Mangalam Birla, recently turned 18 years old and founded her own non-profit organisation, Ujaas, under the Aditya Birla Education Trust (Abet) in December 2021. 

With Ujaas, Advaitesha wants to bring sustainable change in menstrual health and hygiene management by bringing more awareness at the grassroot level. Ujaas aims to break taboos and stigmas around the issue by not only reaching out to young girls but their families as well, 

What made you launch Ujaas?

Since generations, my family has always been involved in social work. Throughout my childhood, I've been influenced by strong-minded, independent and progressive women, including my mother - Neerja Birla. As a result of her untiring efforts, Aditya Birla Education Trust (ABET) has been able to positively impact the lives of people from all sections of society and bring about progressive change in the field of education and on the mental health landscape of India. Having seen her passion towards the welfare work that ABET does, I've always been inspired to follow her footsteps

Since my early teens, I've felt passionately about menstrual health and management. As I read more about the prevailing issues in India, the statistics that came out were really startling and highlight the gravity of the issue. The fact that even in this age so many women still have no access to safe menstrual absorbents and have to resort to unhygienic and unsafe alternatives, is disheartening. It is disillusioning how a process that 'gives life' can be considered impure. These beliefs violate basic human rights. I truly believe that a woman must never-ever be afraid or ashamed of her periods. Period!

And so, advocating for menstrual health became my calling. Ujaas, the newest vertical of ABET, started as a small dream and humble initiative to make a difference. We hope to turn it into a 'Movement' that can transform India's attitude towards menstrual health forever.

What kind of challenges do you foresee?

When we thought about starting Ujaas, we first looked at all the challenges and hurdles that we would face. And to tell you the truth, we foresaw most of them right at the start.

Like it is in so many other parts of the world, the stigmas surrounding menstrual health are so strong in our country that it remains a taboo topic. People still believe in the archaic myths about menstruation and continue to practice the age-old rituals where women are made to feel conscious, ashamed and apologetic about their periods. In fact, society's attitude often amounts to 'menstruation/period shaming'.

Families and communities still don't want to discuss the issue openly and often choose to not send the women and adolescent girls of the family to our awareness workshops. Convincing people to let them participate is definitely a challenge at times. Also, in remote areas, without support from their families, girls lack the means of

transportation to come to our workshop venues. This is where we have to make the effort to reach out to them.

I can say with honesty that despite having made inroads, the challenges still exist. But we intend to keep chipping away at the resistance and work unflinchingly towards the fruition of our goal - a world where period poverty no longer exists.