PETALING JAYA, May 20 — Vimala Kanagaratnam championed her own initiative to provide sanitary pads to women and girls in need about a month ago.
The social marketer’s effort caught the attention of Kotex Malaysia, who then contacted her to help provide 384 packs of sanitary pads to be distributed across the Klang Valley, especially those located within the Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO) zones.
Through #KotexSheCanFund, the company’s aim of recognising and providing support to women and girls has been ongoing over the past two years.
Young girls and adult women from the B40 communities have benefited, with many of them having either lost their income or have had to to hold on to their limited financial resources.
“When money is short, sanitary pads are the last thing on their minds as they would rather purchase their essentials such as groceries for their families,” Vimala told Malay Mail.
“As a result, these girls used fabric from old clothes to make their own pads, while one family that I met had used wet newspapers as substitutes for their sanitary pads.
“That discovery shocked me and I wanted to help them as much as I could.”
While Vimala has been busy getting in touch with families in need of pads and donors, her close friends were roped in to assist with the delivery and distribution of the sanitary napkins to the respective families in need.
“I didn’t think that many Malaysians would step in to help these communities, but when the story was published in a local media, many people called me to donate pads to me including friends from Singapore.”
She has also been helping poorer communities by distributing clothes, uniforms and even heading to charity bazaars to collect clothes for needy communities for the past 20 years.
Kimberly-Clark marketing manager, Frenissa Lagman said that Kotex Malaysia assisted Vimala so that she can reach out to young girls, women in need so that they did not have to worry about their basic necessities during this difficult time.
“The current Covid-19 pandemic has been a difficult time for many Malaysians and for Vimala to do this initiative out of her own good will, it definitely stood out for us and we are happy to support her with the donation of our products.”
