More than 300 million girls and women in India don't have access to safe affordable menstrual hygiene products.
Month after month they reuse—and often share—absorbent cloth that’s difficult to clean and almost imposible to sanitize.
In rural India, women use rags, shredded newspaper, or dry leaves to absorb menstrual flow.
75 percent of adolescent girls suffer infections and other urogenital health disorders during menstruation.
One third of female students don’t go to school during their period, and many drop out of school completely before finishing their basic education.
Even if they could afford sanitary pads, social stigma makes women too embarrassed to ask for them in male-run shops.
The Period Dignity Project will establish a small women-run factory to make clean affordable menstrual pads and will distribute the pads trhrough a woman-to-woman network of small self-help groups, social centers, and community-based organizations.
The Period Dignity Project will provide productive employment and independent income for 6 to 10 women trained to make and distribute the pads. The women also will provide menstrual health and hygiene information through science-based community outreach programs.
The Period Dignity Project will make it possible for school-age girls to manage their period without missing classes. For many, Period Dignity will mean the difference between staying in school and dropping out completely before finishing their basic eduction.
Your support can make a huge difference in the lives of millions of women.
$50 will buy enough raw materials for more than 1500 pads each month.
$75 will pay for one month's electricity.
$225 will pay rent for a month.
Every contribution to the Period Dignity Project will help students, housewives, young mothers, and working women live with health and dignity every day, month after month.
Period Dignity is a project of The JJ Metta Memorial Foundation. We believe that health, education, and dignity are fundamental rights of all children. We created the Period Dignity Project to help girls on the threshold of adolescence travel through adulthood with the freedom, health, and dignity that are their rights.
