Arunachalam Muruganantham, founder of Jayaashree Industries had to miss the culminating event due to situations outside of his control. But we love his work so much, and because they were a GEA company, we wanted to share his TED talk.
Jayaashree Industries delivers an essential commodity—the sanitary pad—to poor girls and women at affordable rates. The company distributes locally made sanitary pad via women led franchises. Today, Jayashree Industries has franchises in over 1,300 villages across 23 states of India, and presence in over 24 countries.
I’m going to make India [into] a 100-percent-sanitary-napkin-using country in my lifetime. Tweet This Quote
In India, one in five girls drop out of school when they reach puberty due to lack of access to sanitary pads. Of the girls who remain in school, they will on average miss five school days a month due to lack of access to sanitary pads during menstruation. Jayashree Industries exists to eliminate these statistics.
This post is part of a series profiling ventures in first accelerator program dedicated to impacting the lives of millions of girls in poverty. For more information on the program, check out the Girl Effect Accelerator website.