A little Wednesday inspiration

All too often the news from the developing world focuses on the negatives - poverty, malnutrition, social repression.  So it's great to come across a story that reaffirms your faith in the world and the enormous difference that dedication can make.

In the Guardian's excellent GlobalDevelopment section this Sunday there was just such a story - the tale of an Indian man named Arunachalam Muruganantham who toiled for eight years to create low-cost sanitary protection - and an income - for poor rural women in India's Orissa state.  Giving them dignity and better reproductive health.  Not glamorous, but truly inspiring, particularly in the face of family pressure, social taboos, and a lack of interest in the issue.

Through socially taboo experiments, invention, and sheer hard work, Muruganantham has developed a low-cost machine for the manufacture of sanitary towels, selling the machines for £1,600 directly to rural women, NGOs and self-help groups (often with the help of bank loans). Commercial machines instead cost over £300,000. An operator can learn the entire towel-making process in 3 hours - and once made, employ more people to help with processing and distribution. Currently 189 villages have sellers, with plans to expand.

And the most inspiring thing of all? Muruganantham has refused to sell his invention to any corporations, having seen his own parents struggling for income.

So to Muruganantham and all the other quiet heroes out there - congratulations.