GOOD UNIVERSE, Organisation Working for Women Sexual & Reproductive Health receives a Grant of Rs. 25 lakhs

By: WE Staff | Tuesday, 23 August 2022

CIE-IIIT Hyderabad, PRIF (Pernod Ricard India Foundation) awards a grant of Rs. 25 lakhs to GOOD UNIVERSE, an organisation that promotes women's sexual and reproductive health as well as the effects of climate change on women's health.

The funding was given to Rangareddy, Sangareddy, and Hyderabad districts' project E3 for female sanitation workers. The organisation seeks to make a difference in the lives of the group of women who are most at risk, the female sanitation workers. Through the project, Good Universe will equip the female sanitation workers with the knowledge, skills, and resources they need to live a healthy and respectable life.

The WE Incubation Program run by CIE-IIIT Hyderabad, one of India's largest and oldest deep-tech academic incubators, in conjunction with financial partner Pernod Ricard India Foundation (PRIF), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pernod Ricard India, made this funding possible.

The health of the female sanitation employees is the project's key element. In order to bring about change in these women's lives, Good Universe collaborates closely with them.

About Project E3.

Education, Empowerment, and Enabling is referred to as E3. The latest effort by Good Universe to improve the lives of female sanitation workers is called Project E3. Good Universe's E3 Project increases the capacity of female sanitation workers to live a healthy life and adopt knowledgeable lifestyle choices by educating, empowering, and enabling them with the appropriate tools and resources.

E3 will be operational among Hyderabad's female sanitation employees after receiving the 2.5 million grant from CIE IIIT-Hyderabad and PRIF. Sexual and reproductive health, mental health, non-communicable illnesses, and breast and cervical cancer will be the main focus areas of this initiative.

Kamal Nayak mentions, “Sanitation workers have been kept away from the mainstream knowledge and information around sexual & reproductive health, mental health, breast and cervical cancer and non-communicable diseases. Based on the survey conducted among FWS by Good Universe, women at the age as young as 22 underwent hysterectomy in private hospitals for reasons like contraception, swollen uterus which is not the right thing to do. Lack of awareness and understanding being the major reason for this to happen. Our aim is to provide comprehensive health care to these female sanitation workers. In the first phase, we will be working with 6000 FSWs.”

Through E3, Good Universe will assist female sanitation workers and their adolescent girls in participating in active health programmes, support them, and arm them with the information they need to deal with the many health issues that they frequently encounter as a result of their unfavourable working conditions.