India and Colombia Come Together to Tackle Period Stigma Over a Cup of Tea
Is there anything more unifying than a nice cup of tea? Earlier this year, VMLY&R India and Unipads, an Indian social enterprise that creates reusable sanitary towels, turned the humble cuppa into a powerful medium to tackle taboos around menstruation. They created a unique calendar that offered up a different tea blend for every day of the menstrual cycle. Each tea was specially designed to help women and girls with their bodies’ specific and changing needs.
They teamed up with Tea Promoters India and a specialist team of sommeliers to craft the teas, and NGO Manav Sadhna to help distribute the product and spread awareness to rural communities.
India is the world’s biggest consumer of tea, so this idea might seem to be the sort of thing that could only have come from India. But, as it turns out, this project is actually the fruit of a collaboration between VMLY&R Commerce Colombia and VMLY&R India. The team in Colombia had been investigating stigmas and challenges around menstruation in Latin America and were developing ideas around that. As they worked, they hit upon an idea that they realised could be much more powerful in India, and so the offices began to work together.
Edwin Pineda, CCO, VMLY&R Commerce Colombia and Mahesh Ambaliya, creative director, VMLY&R India chat to LBB’s Laura Swinton about this unusual collaboration.
LBB> What was the brief or conversation that initiated this project?
Edwin & Mahesh> We are an integrated network, and in order to have a complete picture of what is happening on a creative level, we have frequent conversations between offices, conversations that are always related to what is going on in local contexts. In that order of ideas, this project arises as a response to the role that menstruation plays in many communities, where gender inequality, poverty and some cultural practices can make it an experience of stigma and even discrimination, as noted by UNICEF in Colombia.
Thus, the idea that was initially inspired in Latin America, begins to demonstrate that it responds to problems that, beyond being located in a single region, occur in various contexts, with different nuances, as evidenced in India. As a network we decided that the best place to execute it was there and, from that moment on, we began to work closely with Mukund and the talents of both offices.
LBB> Why was the stigma that persists around menstruation such an important issue to tackle, and can you give us some insight about why this taboo still exists?
Edwin & Mahesh> In India, menstruation has been, and still is, a taboo. The stigma on menstruation, that is present in several societies, has an impact on the lifestyle, the emotional and mental state, and therefore in the overall health of girls and women. The challenge of addressing sociocultural taboos and beliefs about menstruation had to start on addressing girls’ low levels of knowledge and understanding about puberty, menstruation, and their own reproductive health.
This idea addresses the problem from the main issues, managing to generate conversations to educate from home, education for boys and girls in schools and self-knowledge of their body through a very important element/ritual in the local culture such as tea, with which we decided to break these taboos from an early age to create discussions that would lead to confident and empowered women.
LBB> The connection between sanctuary products/menstruation and tea is inspired. How did that creative connection come about?
Edwin & Mahesh> India is the main tea consumer in the world, traditional kitchens have used their medical benefits for a long time, it's a tradition that women learn since they are born through their families. Tea moments come with rituals, gathered among social circles based on trust where they share, and this was perfect for us for two reasons: first, because tea has many ingredients that help control the physical effects of menstruations; and second, because tea is enjoyed in the company of partners and family. Therefore, through the world of tea, so familiar to this context, we could create conversations that should also be familiar, looking to break taboos and myths, educating the girls of the future and empowering more women; making them feel more secure of themselves.
LBB> I bet it was interesting delving into all of the different teas and their properties! What was that process like? Who did you work with and what were some of the surprising or interesting things that you learned?
Edwin & Mahesh> Tea promoters India along with tea sommeliers came on board to help us curate the tea with distinct properties. And it is mind boggling to see how many teas there are! There were two to three months of discussions between the tea and the health experts. We looked at hundreds of blends before finalising 31. There were various tea blends that have similar properties but what we learnt is just like any seasonal fruits and veggies tea is also mostly seasonal! So, we had to choose the combinations that were fresh, seasonal and helped relieve the symptoms on that day. And then we had to source different ingredients for the blends from various parts of India and India is a huge country. Tea mostly grows in the east end, and we sit at the west end! Some ingredients travelled more than 2000 km, now that’s a tea blend.
LBB> And can you tell me about some of the other partners/organisations you worked with on the project and how they helped elevate what you were doing?
Edwin & Mahesh> We worked with two non-profit organisations based out of Gujarat, India: Manav Sadhna and Saath Charitable Trust. Both being one of the oldest and reputed organisations working towards women's empowerment, livelihood, health and hygiene and disaster relief. Their work involves developing Community Centers in the heart of marginalised communities, serving the communities with need-based initiatives, building relationships and trust through transparency, enabling community through partnerships and ownership of the centre space and empowering all segments (irrespective of age and gender) through relevant programs.
When we shared the idea of the ‘Tea Cycle’ project with them, they were keen to learn more about it. They even made the arrangements to conduct the interactive sessions for the women and young girls at their community centres. Their volunteers helped us connect with many more government/community/trust schools where there was a dire need for an intervention to advocate and start an open conversation around menstruation.
LBB> From a design perspective, the boxes are very clever, what were the main design challenges you had to tackle?
Edwin & Mahesh> Inspired by the cycle itself, we decided a circled form kit would do best with red as its main colour. The illustrations made it easy for young girls to understand and read, and the use of a main character illustrated as a young girl with braids, allowed girls to feel better represented. Fonts that created a fun and good-to-show-to-my-friends type of item, part of an infographic design with information easy to digest.
Illustrations used were inspired by the kawaii style, with elements that represented the feminine nature of young girls, beginning their adulthood. Colour pallet among shades of red and roses to bring girls closer to their menstruation cycle and elements easy to understand and relate to. Clean illustrations and background to highlight the important information for girls and adults to read and focus on the main data to be used in the process of talking to teenagers about their period.
LBB> How did you amplify the project?
Edwin & Mahesh> We have a network of Kalyani’s which is a VLE (village level entrepreneur) who is a distributor of pads and also a knowledge partner. They work in the community to raise awareness about menstruation. And since villages are a close-knit community - they are our gateway to the whole community. They help us conduct awareness sessions in these close communities and rural schools to open conversations around menstruation which hardly happens since it is a taboo topic. In urban areas we have educational institutions that we already work for, who helped us launch these in schools. Even professors from IIM (India’s premier management school) want to showcase the ‘Tea Cycle’ box in the institute. We had influencers and community leaders join us at the launch who helped us spread awareness about ‘Tea Cycle’ online.
