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The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

bbc.co.uk

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Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#91

Post by Spooky23 »

hoggle wrote: post #39
igul222 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article mentions that commercial napkins sold for 4 rupees despite cotton being 1/4000th the cost, but also says farther down that the locally produced ones sell for an average of 2.5 rupees each. That's a 38% discount: significant, but it doesn't seem like a game-changing difference to me. I imagine that if this catches on, the larger manufacturers will likely just cut their margins to compete. On a more general…

I would think the decentralised approach would always be able to compete when we factor in transportation costs which usually make up a pretty significant percentage of the actual sales price with centralised mass production. Much more of the money stays in the local economies too. http://www.mapsofindia.com/top-ten/india-crops/cotton.html Even if this particular business model would "only" work in India it'd be a su…

I think looking at the supply-side is the wrong approach. There's probably some factory in China churning out pads for half the cost, absorbing more of the transport cost.

The real genius here is the local factor. We're talking Mary Kay ladies selling sanitary pads. The power of local communities to change behavior and move product is incredible, especially in places where people actually talk to each other. Americans learn about paper towels from TV. If you can't afford a TV, you're talking to people more, and that's a more more valuable channel to engage folks.

End of the day, the product is cheap enough, but there is a powerful incentive to sell, and that's the real magic.

Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#92

Post by jaldoretta »

I'm a female founder in the US with a startup that has to do with menstruation, and I cannot even begin to tell you how uncomfortable people (male and female) get when I talk with them about it. For a man in India (where this topic is exponentially more taboo) to undertake a business like this and persist despite the backlash is so incredibly inspiring. The benefit of his business goes so far beyond simply reducing napkin prices...he's helping to break down taboos that exist in India (and across the globe), and giving women opportunities (not to mention more knowledge and confidence about their bodies) that they never would have had otherwise.

Absolutely amazing.

Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#93

Post by nate_meurer »

I want to hug this guy. Like, really. Buy me a airplane ticket.

Arunachalam Muruganantham is a hero. I use that word in its full magnitude. Since I am now an expert on the matter, having read the entire article, I'll speculate on what motivates this man:

- Grit. Crazy amounts of grit. The article is full of good quotes, but my favorite is what he said after being abandoned by his mother:

"It was a problem for me," he says. "I had to cook my own food."

- Humility combined with hunger:

"Luckily I'm not educated," he tells students. "If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future."

"Every time he comes to know something new, he wants to know everything about it," [his wife] says.

- Love of humanity, on some level at least:

"Anyone with an MBA would immediately accumulate the maximum money. But I did not want to. Why? Because from childhood I know no human being died because of poverty - everything happens because of ignorance."

As an aside, I LOVE the picture of his wife and daughter toward the end. This one photograph lends better context to the story than all the others combined. I know a single picture means nothing, but the look in his daughter's eyes makes me think she'll inherit something of her dad's baddassness.

And as another aside, bloody god-damn fucking hell, are the following bits really true?

There are still many taboos around menstruation in India. Women can't visit temples or public places, they're not allowed to cook or touch the water supply - essentially they are considered untouchable.

There are also myths and fears surrounding the use of sanitary pads - that women who use them will go blind, for example, or will never get married.

Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#95

Post by marvin »

vidarh wrote: post #42
igul222 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article mentions that commercial napkins sold for 4 rupees despite cotton being 1/4000th the cost, but also says farther down that the locally produced ones sell for an average of 2.5 rupees each. That's a 38% discount: significant, but it doesn't seem like a game-changing difference to me. I imagine that if this catches on, the larger manufacturers will likely just cut their margins to compete. On a more general…

38% discount + 10 new jobs per machine. And each additional woman who can now afford to use them, is one more woman who is now more likely to be able to hold down a job or complete school. I also don't think it's as simple as cutting margins. Note how much of the issue is/was down to social taboos and people being embarrassed about even things like buying them from men in the local shops. Eventually, sure - as it say…

My gut feeling is the ripple effects in the local economy is huge. Never mind that this product could probably be produced with less effort at a centralized location - initiatives like these work by both providing a slightly cheaper product and enabling poor people to participate in secondary or tertiary industries.

So in a sense this is an education project on multiple fronts as well. Not just about hygiene and taboos, but also about economics. It's a brilliant illustration that increases in wealth, even from a modest starting point, have large effect. It would be really cool to see this phenomenon studied closer.

World poverty is really just like the Great Depression on a global scale: Lots of quite healthy and able humans which are for some reason (economics, lack of education, lack of communication) unable to participate in global wealth creation. Anything that helps alleviate this problem is a big bonus for humanity.

Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#96

Post by krrrh »

callum85 wrote: post #52
simsalapim wrote: post #43

Or you just get menstruation cups? Might be a bit more expensive initially but cheaper longterm and a lot more environmentally friendly. http://www.ruby-cup.com/en/

I know two women who have tried those. In both cases they tried for several months to get used to them, but they gave up eventually because they're so unpleasant to use, and it never gets any easier. Apparently.

I feel like most of the university-educated young women I know use Diva Cups or Keepers (and many don't mind talking about them and promoting them to others or I wouldn't know that). I think their usage really depends on local culture, social norms, propensity to shop in organic grocery stores where they are often sold, etc.. The first women I knew who used them started in the early nineties.

Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#98

Post by dharmach »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #75
primitivesuave wrote: post #6

> He believes that big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas he prefers the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," he says. What a profound and inspiring worldview.

Perhaps, but the difference between butterflies and mosquitoes isn't really in damage to the food (virtually zero in both cases)... it's in the fact that butterflies perform a service (pollination) for the flowers. Mosquitoes quite literally live and die by the lightness of their touch; compare the survival rates of human-feeding mosquitoes (not 100%, but not far off) and human-feeding horseflies (0%).

When I show moon, look at the moon, not at my finger (another quote).

Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#99

Post by tootie »

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #22

Contrast this grass roots effort with OLPC, a grandiose plan to distribute One Laptop per Child to the third world. The best quip I ever read about that was: "OLPC is a rich man's idea of what poor men need. It's like donating an expresso machine to a homeless shelter." Instead, as the article makes clear, many poor villages don't even have ready access to clean water. This one humble guy has done more good for more…

The OLPC wasn't about getting luxury electronics in the hands of the poor, it was about getting them free self-directed education. It was an attempt to leapfrog all of them fundamental problems of poverty by empowering people to do things for themselves.

Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#100

Post by sliverstorm »

vacri wrote: post #44
PhantomGremlin wrote: post #22

Contrast this grass roots effort with OLPC, a grandiose plan to distribute One Laptop per Child to the third world. The best quip I ever read about that was: "OLPC is a rich man's idea of what poor men need. It's like donating an expresso machine to a homeless shelter." Instead, as the article makes clear, many poor villages don't even have ready access to clean water. This one humble guy has done more good for more…

It's not a competition. Also, does your quipper think that women aren't important? I always find it amusing when people wax philosophical about equality whilst retreating into sexist terminology to do so. Instead of 'poor men', 'the poor' or 'poor people' works to the same effect.

OLPC was created by a man (hence 'rich man'), and rich man/poor man is a more powerful literary device than rich man/the poor.
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