The Pad Project

The Pad Project aims to create equal access to menstrual products and ensure that a period ends a sentence, not a girl’s education. Specifically, our goals are

● To end period stigma both locally and globally.
● To empower women to participate as full and equal citizens in their community.
● To establish local and global partnerships with on-the-ground NGOs working in the MHM space.
● To measure the impact of each project through monthly reports from our local NGOs.
● To create a sustainable women-led social micro-economy around each project.
● To inspire youth activism and engagement in menstrual equity initiatives in the U.S. and around the world.

Our strategies are
- To measure the impact of our work.
- To secure a diverse array of funding from grants, corporate partnerships, in-kind sponsors, etc. to build our staff and implement more programs.
- To work towards eradicating period poverty and the stigmatization of menstruation.
- To support reproductive and sexual health education for girls’ well being.
- To help communities provide access to low cost menstrual products so girls can stay in school through to the completion of their education.

Short term:
- To support existing partnerships in Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, and three different regions in India.
- To empower high school students in the United States to advocate for menstrual equity.
- To raise awareness about menstrual hygiene management through screenings of Period. End of Sentence., fundraising events, and speaking engagements.
- To work with New York Times Bestseller Anita Diamant, author of The Red Tent, to publish the book Period. End of Sentence. in Spring 2021.
- To install pad machines at new sites around the world and to sponsor more MHM programs.

Long term:
- To partner with key stakeholders to help expand our impact.
- To create a reliable way to measure our impact that can guide future practices.
- To create educational programming for middle school, high school, and college students to start conversations about menstrual health and to provide teachers with a resource for talking about reproductive health issues in the U.S. and around the world.
- To develop 100% biodegradable pads.
- To design a pad machine in-house that can be shipped around the world and assembled by any community.

As a fledgling nonprofit, we are meeting our goals by working with key stakeholders who financially support us to purchase pad machines, implement reusable pad programs, and run educational MHM advocacy workshops. Before partnering with a grassroots NGO, we do our due diligence to make sure the project will be useful and effective in the community. Because we are committed to implementing projects in the most sustainable manner possible, there may be a 5 to 6 month wait time before we can successfully install a machine. Pad machines may require electricity, running water, etc. in order to operate. After the pad machine has been installed, or the reusable pad program has been implemented, we work directly with the NGO to monitor the impact of the program. The NGO submits quarterly reports to us so that we can work together to improve the effectiveness of the program.

Since 2018, we have successfully expanded our operation. The Pad Project is working to install a pad machine in Afghanistan, placing six more pad machines in different regions in India, and supporting the production of cloth reusable pads in Sierra Leone and Guatemala. In the greater Los Angeles area The Pad Project is combating period poverty by hosting menstrual hygiene donation drives.

In Kathikera, the village where the initial pad machine was placed, the attitudes have changed drastically with regard to the acceptance of menstruation as a topic and with the establishment and proper operation of the pad machine. There has been an increase in the number of women using pads in the village, specifically including adolescent girls and middle-aged women. There has also been an increase in awareness and acceptance among the men in the village about menstruation and other topics and discussions relevant to women’s sexual and reproductive health.