Myna Mahila Foundation provides access to menstrual hygiene education and products to more than 10000 women every month at their doorstep in urban slums in Mumbai. We employ women from these slums to manufacture and distribute affordable sanitary pads locally, improving menstrual hygiene, providing stable employment, and building a trusted network across the community. We also support girls from single-parent or orphaned families who cannot afford pads with menstrual hygiene kits every 3 months.
Women face stigma buying pads from male-run medical stores and the cost is often prohibitive. Without access to pads and water, more than 40% Indian women rely on unhygienic cloth rags. These are improperly cleaned, can cause infections, uncomfortable irritation and social exclusion. Our Myna women work door-to-door educating women about menstrual hygiene, breaking silence on the topic and ensuring that every woman in the community has access to accurate information and affordable products.
This project is aimed at improving the livelihoods of many more women in urban slums by increasing access to employment opportunities in their home communities. We can reach over 125,000 women a month for two years with funding support. For women who do not have access otherwise at all, we provide a menstrual hygiene kit, which includes product packets, newspaper bags for disposal, underwear, soap, period tracking cards, and counselling support to vulnerable girls.
The project will increase awareness of menstrual hygiene practices and access to sanitary products for 125,000 girls in urban slums in Mumbai. We will work to rigorously measure the impact of this project on, 1) health outcomes such as Urinary Tract Infections and vaginal infections, 2) social outcomes, such as confidence levels and a sense of empowerment, and 3) financial outcomes, such as increased work/school attendance and productivity, and standard of living for our women by job creation.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
