NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, August 10, 2015

In rural India, menstruating women often limit themselves from contributing to their communities simply because they lack access to affordable sanitary protection. The implications are real – every year, many of these rural girls and women miss up to 50 days of work or school. A report says that “inadequate menstrual protection makes adolescent girls (age group 12-18 years) miss 5 days of school in a month (50 days a year). Around 23% of these girls actually drop out of school after they started menstruating.”

Along with economic challenges, cultural stigmas prevent many women from easily accessing safe sanitary protection, especially in most rural Indian communities. The lack of access and proper sanitary hygiene can even lead to infections and even infertility.

In order to address this pressing healthcare issue, Saathi was founded by Kristin Kagetsu, Amrita Saigal, Grace Kane, Ashutosh Kumar and Zachary Rose. The aim was to develop a small scale manufacturing process that would produce affordable sanitary protection from waste banana tree fibre.