14-year-old launches initiative to tackle school dropout rates among girls

BENGALURU: Fourteen-year-old Ananya Malde was appalled to see a young girl who had to drop out of school due to period concerns. After learning that there are many school-going girls, especially in the rural side of India, who face the problem of absenteeism due to menses, Malde decided to launch an initiative that reduces the school dropout rates.

This gave birth to Project Pragati in November 2020 which aims to provide necessary menstrual awareness and menstrual products to school girls between the age group of 10-18 years. This project was launched as part of the Future Leaders Programme by 1 Million for 1 Billion (1M1B) Foundation, a Bengaluru-based non-profit organisation that mobilises youngsters to drive change in environment, education, health, entrepreneurship among other activities.

Malde, who is now studying in Class 9, hails from Gujarat. She has her ancestral roots in a village near Kutch, which is considered as one of the most backward regions of the state. Project Pragati took its wings right from Kutch and spread to villages near Vadodara, and is now looking to expand in and around Bengaluru. “I have a very emotional connect with Gujarat and I also realised that the state of menstrual health in Kutch is very impoverished.

Hence, I decided to start my campaign from there. I found that many girls were dropping out of school and not comfortable to talk to their parents on something like period issues. I have drafted a menstrual health curriculum in three languages (Gujarati, Hindi and English) that will break down the science behind the menstrual cycle in a simple language,” says Malde.

Recently, in the first week of January, she also reached out to the fishing and Saltpan community in Gujarat whose children have to stay put in shacks for a long time owing to the nature of work their parents do. “We distributed sanitary pads that can last for over six months to 75 girls of these communities. I have reached out to 1,000 girls in the villages of Kutch and Vadodara and helped distribute 30,000 sanitary pads till date, and installed two incinerators in two schools,” says Malde, who has raised Rs 5,50,000 through a crowd-funding platform. Spending just a couple of hours in academics, Malde pre-dominantly spends more time on philanthropic work.

Meanwhile, working on a sustainable and environmental initiative under the same Future Leaders Programme by 1M1B Foundation, is Bengaluru-based Renee George. The 15-year-old is affected by the deteriorating condition of the Doddanakundi lake (near Old Airport Road), one she always admired for the vast vegetation. To rejuvenate the dried-up lake, George started Project Aboat Time, which aims to revive the dying lakes of Bengaluru using a low-cost technique called ‘floating treatment wetlands’. “Allowing the lake to die in front of us makes us equally responsible for the demise.

After research, I found that the floating treatment for wetlands is a natural method of using plants to increase the nutritional level of the water which evens out the oxygen levels in order to host an ecosystem. This is a less-expensive model compared to the obvious sewage treatment plants method, which doesn’t work for all the lakes,” says George, who is now clearing up the garbage around the lake along with volunteers from her gated community, as a first step towards rejuvenating the lake. Both Malde and George have also been selected to showcase their works at 1M1B Summit at United Nations, New York.

Project Pragati
Distributed 30,000 sanitary pads to villages in Gujarat
Reached out to 1,000 girls
Raised Rs 5,50,000