As a part of this event, speakers would be talking about why women are sexually assaulted. Further, the speakers are expected to speak about the need for menstrual hygiene and how the lack of it can lead to diseases
The students of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras launched a social campaign called UnMute to raise awareness on menstrual hygiene and conduct seminars on defence against sexual harassment.
The students have partnered with NGOs such as Chudar, Go-Hygiene, CRY, Sakhya and Swayam to conduct a sanitary-napkin distribution drive in Bengaluru. In collaboration with these NGOs, the students also held online sessions on gender inequality. They have been holding an awareness campaign on Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) since October primarily for school-going girls in Chennai.
UnMute is part of the annual technical festival of IIT Madras, Shaastra 2022. The faculty advisor for the festival, Ratna Kumar Annabattula, said, “This year the team has put tremendous efforts to execute UnMute. Having collaborated with various NGOs, the students hope to create a long-lasting impact by helping women to pursue a confident life.”
The Co-curricular Affairs Secretary of the festival, Nitish Gupta, said, “We believe that a lot of these incidents (sexual harassment) can be mitigated by informing women about some basic self-defence techniques along with helping them and, even men, understand how to assess a situation so that they can help people, even if they aren’t the ones being assaulted."
As a part of this event, speakers would be talking about why women are sexually assaulted. Further, the speakers are expected to speak about the need for menstrual hygiene, how the lack of it can lead to diseases and teach young girls about how to maintain good menstrual hygiene. The students plan to conduct a few sessions as the speakers themselves for self-defence.
