After extensive research and numerous conversation with different stakeholders it has become clear that many adolescent girls start their periods uninformed and unprepared. Mothers are typically the primary source of information, but they inform girls too little and too late and often communicate their own misconceptions. To address this issue, Noida hub started the project Bleed to Lead, which aims to foster period leadership.

The main objectives of the project are:

• To build the capacity of girls aged between 14-16 through training materials and handouts to conduct workshops on menstrual hygiene.


• To address the psychosocial and other needs of women and girls who have experienced the taboo of menstruation and to bring about change.


• Understand laws, policies, guidelines that exist in India, the role of various actors responsible to provide services, and good practices linked to services for improving the state of menstrual education in order to incorporate effective use of workshops as a means of further education.


• To institute systems to provide referral and linkage for mental health needs to women and girls who have experienced violence in general and domestic violence in particular.


• To train young girls who can further train kids and elders in their community to help slowly but steadily.

Impact

• To date, 14 girls have gone through the period curriculum for conducting workshops on menstrual hygiene and 14 girls are trained by professionals and have taken workshops in 2 government schools in Noida reaching out to more than 80 girls from low-income backgrounds.


• Short-term goal: further support these 14 girls to spread awareness in their communities. It's a self sustainable goal. Girls are taking a lead in tracking their impact.


• Mid-term goal: design and launch a fellowship model with 20 students across the world


• Long-term goal: Partner with Non-profits and institutions to expand the scope of fellowship programme. The fellowship will have better mechanisms to track individual fellows' success. We consider the first 14 students to be a part our pilot programme helping in proof of concept.