Maya's 7 Day Challenge

Using mobile games to increase awareness about menstrual hygiene in rural communities.

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Cut from a different cloth

Lacking the feminine touch RATAN JADHAV, a shy, slight woman in her 30s, works on a farm in Osmanabad, a remote part of the western Indian state of Maharashtra. Her...

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Boond and Decode Global teamed up to tackle the challenge of lack of access and knowledge of menstrual hygiene in rural areas of India through complementing traditional outreach and education activities with mobile technology and games.

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Decode Global and Boond in association with Goonj initiated the “Not just a piece of Cloth” programme, which aims to bring a gradual change in mindsets about the taboo linked with women health and menstrual hygiene.

The combined team conducted exhaustive workshops and provided women with healthy alternatives to traditional practices. 

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Students at Chennai's Kilpauk Medical College check out a newly installed sanitary napkin vending machine and napkin incinerator.  The machines were installed in 2010 as a part of India's national sanitation campaign, in the hopes of reducing absenteeism during students' menstruating days.

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Out of India's 355 million menstruating women, only 12% use sanitary napkins according to a 2011 survey conducted by ACNielsen in association with Plan India.

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The Sanitary Napkin Machine; Promoting Sanitation and Profit-Making in India's Rural Communities

Not satisfied with simply manufacturing and distributing ready-made sanitary napkins, Jaydeep Mandel and Sombodhi Ghosh are in the process of developing a sanitary napkin manufacturing kit to be available for purchase by female entrepreneurs.  Founded on the idea that overcoming menstruation stigmas mean getting more women involved in the napkin-making process, their company Aakar Innovations promises to both promote menstrual hygiene, and encourage entrepreneurship among rural Indian women.   

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India's Untouchable Market

Arunachalam Muruganantham is a charismatic entrepreneur on an unusual mission to bring affordable and high-quality sanitary napkins to women throughout India.  Widely known for testing his products on himself using the innards of a soccer ball and goat's blood, Murugantham's story exemplifies how menstruation taboos are limiting India's industries, and demonstrates the abundance of opportunities made available when they are overcome.

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Hygiene and the Economy

Proof that separate bathrooms and easy access to sanitary pads may have a greater impact on India's economy than you might think.  Writers Natasha Khan and Ketaki Gokhale expose how deficiencies in infrastructure and hygiene products are preventing Indian women from succeeding in the workplace, and keeping India's economy from reaching its full potential.

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Story from the field: Deepali, 14 and a chirpy girl studying in a private school in Nimach scheme, Udaipur, cries and says, “We don’t talk about it at all”. That is how deep seated the taboo about menstruation is in even in the urban slums here. She says “I got my menses when I was thirteen and till that very time, I had no information about what menstrual cycle was. My grandmother makes me sleep separately and does not even let me enter the house kitchen.” She says her mother told her nothing to prepare her for the change in her physiology and her life in general. Deepali lives a life of complete isolation the 3-5 days her menstruation lasts in a month. She sits separately during the day and sleeps alone in the night. She does not like these restrictions and feels stressed and depressed because of it.

Deepali voices her discomfort during the Not Just a Piece of Cloth initiative in June 2013

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A Deeper Issue at Hand

Is a simple insufficiency of sanitary products to blame for girls' under-attendance in Nepalese schools?  Jezebel blogger Anna North suggests that Nepal's education gap might actually allude to a deeper issue beyond mere matters of sanitation.

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For girls living in India, easy access to sanitary pads is not just a matter of female health, but also one of female empowerment. Working with Boond and Decode Global, Sunita Patil is searching for a greater understanding of the social stigmas surrounding menstruation so that rural women and girls like Ankita can build the confidence and skills intrinsic to all healthy, empowered women.

16-year-old Ankita regrets not being able to attend school during her menstruation. She believes that using sanitary pads would allow her to go to school so she could “fulfill her dream and become an engineer”. Ankita has never used a sanitary napkin, but holds this belief from an advertisement – in her own words she said “in that ad a girl became first of her class and wrote an exam without any problem because she used a pad and by using that she also felt very comfortable.”

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In order for girls and women to be seen as actors beyond their reproductive capacities, they need to be allowed to make contributions to their families and communities that move beyond the traditional domestic sphere.

From "Charting the Future: empowering girls to prevent early pregnancy", a paper on family planning by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI)

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The Global Oneness Project presents “Not Just a Piece of Cloth", a film that documents Goonj, a volunteer-run cloth recycling center in New Dehli founded by Anshu Gupta.  Goonj recycles donated garments to make new clothes, school bags, and sanitary napkins.

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MYTH: Adolescent girls understand their body, menstrual cycle, conception and contraception. TRUTH: Cultural barriers make correct information about puberty and reproductive health and contraceptives inaccessible. Girls often feel shame and humiliation about their menstrual cycle, so even when they do know where or whom to ask questions, they don't. This also affects their contraceptive use and ability to plan pregnancy. Because adolescent girls don't understand their body well, they also don't understand how they become pregnant or how to prevent pregnancy.

From The Girl Effect, a movement for the empowerment of women and girls across the globe.

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Chitra Unnithan covers the launch of an upstart Indian comic book all about menstruation.  The illustrated online guide, called the Menstrupedia, aims to put an end to the intense social stigmas that surround this natural occurrence, dismissing common menstruation myths and misconceptions while educating women and girls on proper menstrual hygiene.