How One Woman is Normalising Sexual and Reproductive Health  

“I was confronted with stories and experiences I couldn’t ignore; young girls who had intentionally attempted miscarriage because they couldn’t ask their parents to buy them birth control, medical professionals who didn’t know what kind of swab to use to test for STDs, the failure of women to get regular pap smears and mammograms, and the inability of men to talk about sexual and reproductive health, among other things.”

When was the last time you felt safe openly talking about your Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH)?

If you’ve ever struggled to talk about your sexual and reproductive well-being, this article may just be for you.

Manisha Dissanayake, Founder and Director of the Arka Initiative, is a lawyer by profession, currently practising as a Junior Counsel in the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. She primarily works on human rights cases and challenges failures and inaction by the government or public authorities in Sri Lanka.

Arka was born as a result of necessity, as opposed to inspiration. She identified a striking need for real, tangible solutions pertaining to SRH, both in Colombo and in rural areas of the country. She also noticed a lack of platforms and spaces for young, driven professionals to come together to find ways to create enduring solutions and processes to critical issues our society faces.

Like how every dark cloud has a silver lining, Manisha realised that there are people who are willing to go the extra mile to fight for better outcomes for those in need. She sat down with a pen and paper for two months. She started thinking about what Arka could look like – conceptualising its design and purpose; planning teams, projects and social media strategies; and plotting how to obtain incremental growth.

Afterwards, she brought together a small group of inspired and hardworking individuals, which then grew into the team Arka is today.

Manisha and her team at Arka drive change within Sri Lankan communities by focusing on the grassroots and the individuals most affected by SRH issues. They have worked tirelessly to engage with people at awareness sessions in rural areas, worked in maternal hospitals, and even run HIV testing drives in Colombo.

Apart from that, they have been educating vulnerable children at schools about the importance of SRH, conducting sex education sessions in schools and providing reusable sanitary napkins for people who lack access to these basic necessities. The online platform that they manage allows people to receive confidential and prompt answers to urgent questions, providing a safe space for those in vulnerable situations to have access to clear guidance and solutions.

“Adithi has given us an incredible opportunity to provide employment to women in under-served communities and to really address stigmas and vulnerability from the inside out. It has also given us an opportunity to work with incredible brands, donors and individuals who have come forward to volunteer their time, money and platforms. We hope to begin sales in a couple of months after securing necessary approvals.”

Adithi is Arka’s biggest project to date. Through Adithi, they are actively working toward producing the most affordable sanitary pad in the Sri Lankan market. They have imported a sanitary pad machine from India and have based their factory in a small village in the south of the country.

The most daring challenge that Manisha had to face during this journey was to ensure longevity and impact, ensuring that their projects gained momentum, despite her very demanding career of being an attorney at law. However, she overcame this challenge by working closely with her team members, who are just as committed to driving this initiative as she is.

“I won’t forget how a mother of four, in her late forties, told us after an awareness session outside Colombo that this was the first time someone had made an effort to teach her about SRH. She had tears in her eyes when she said this, and when I spoke to her later, she told me that she had never had a pap smear or mammogram in her life, used contraception, or thought of her own autonomy or comfort in her sex life.”

It’s been three years since Arka first started making waves within our community, and although they have achieved massive success, there is still a long journey ahead. There is so much more to be done in the SRH space, and Manisha has already laid out the groundwork to expand Adithi, run their own clinic and see existing projects become more systematic and concrete in the future.

“I would encourage all women working towards something, in whatever sphere, to work hard on being excellent in what they do and let their work speak for itself. It is not a secret that our gender immediately results in an inherent disadvantage in most instances. We have to juggle and struggle with more than our male counterparts. Still, I’ve learned that it’s alright to ask for help, that it’s critical to admit when you are wrong, and that the only way to do something real and meaningful is to constantly evaluate what you are doing and why you are doing it.”

In the wise words of the anonymous author responsible for the birth of this viral quote, “Here’s to strong women. May we know them, may we be them, may we raise them”.

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