Our new outreach team has got a rather special new member – Sobhan Mukherjeee – better known in Kolkata as Padman.
Sobhan, 26, who became the joint supervisor of the team last month, is famous across West Bengal for his extensive awareness programmes on menstrual health and because he has set up his own sanitary pad making business.
The outreach team was established in April to deliver health awareness programmes in the slums on topics like menstrual hygiene, family planning, mother and child health etc.
The 5-strong team has been serving 5,000 people in 6 slums, but with the arrival of Sobhan is expanding to reach 4,000 more people in 4 more slum areas.
Sobhan first learned about CR on Facebook and got in touch with the NGO. He said: “I conducted a session on menstrual health for CR’s women staff and thus was connected with this amazing charity.”
Now he is part of the NGO himself he said: “I feel great to be able to join the Calcutta Rescue team. I am also learning a lot from much-experienced staff.”
He then started to employ women who had lost their jobs during the pandemic and were part of CR’s Restoration of Livelihoods project to pack and sell sanitary pads.
Santanu who is the Head of the Outreach Team said, “Now we can reach more beneficiaries. We did baseline surveys of slums before starting the awareness program. No two areas are the same. It helped us to know what type of awareness programmes to focus on in that particular area. Sobhan is a brilliant addition to our team. His expertise in awareness programs will benefit us greatly”.
Dr Ghosh, Head of CR’s Medical Department, said:
“We provide healthcare facilities through our Street Medicine programme but if we can help the beneficiaries understand how they can stop getting the diseases, it’ll be sustainable. If we can make them understand that drinking contaminated water can cause typhoid, then they will avoid it. After all, prevention is better than cure.”
