Myna's Mission 2 Million

In India, more than 320 million women do not have access to basic health and hygiene needs like menstrual needs, compelling them to drop out of school and the labor force.

More than 250 million Indians do not have access to the internet and have not been able to work from home or attend school during the COVID19 pandemic.  

A mere 23% of women are part of the labor force in India today, setting the norms for women too low.

There is a lack of data on women living in slum-communities across India. This includes women living in urban slums and rural communities. Additionally, there is a lack of standardised metrics to measure health and employment of women living in informal settlements and women from low-income families across India. 

Myna Mahila is committed to enable, educate, enhance and empower women from low-income families to take charge of their bodies and prioritize their health so they can be confident, independent and healthy through data-driven and sustainable digitized initiatives. 

We are empowering women by improving access to health and hygiene products, and shifting health behaviours in the following ways:  

1.Myna’s Health Centres: The women-only Myna centers are located in the slum communities, amidst the needy women and children. The centers provide:

• Education sessions through the Myna Health Education and Empowerment Series (MHEES) which includes sexual reproductive health, diet and nutrition, and mental health
• Access to health and hygiene products like sanitary pads, medicines, etc. 
• Tele-health services
• Life skill sessions and vocational training sessions to employ women. 
• They also serve as pad production and packaging of sanitary and maternity pad units

Hence, women do not need to travel long distances to access health and hygiene products or services and have access to employment opportunities within their communities.

2. Women’s Health Product ATMs: The ATMs will have affordable, high quality and locally produced women’s health products on display behind a clear glass pane providing direct and customizable access (as per flow).

• There will be a TV screen on the ATM that will share educational content and women will have the option to purchase products like a single pad or pad packets as per their need. 
• The absence of shopkeepers will grant women the openness to make their own choice while purchasing the product of their choice. This will also help reduce taboos and shame around women’s health in India, which will contribute to safer health practices.

Hence, the Women’s Health ATMs will contribute to improvement in overall women’s health. 

3.Doorstep access: Our Door to Door model helps us grow our sales networks and create last-mile access. 

• Our pad production women create awareness about women’s health and sell women’s health products. 
• They observe the surrounding environment, behavioural traits, and probe accordingly. 
• Women go Door to Door and create awareness about women’s health and encourage women that use a cloth, to use pads. Our pad production women guide other women in the slum communities in their neighbourhoods. 
• Our women are motivated to address the problem, her basic literacy skills and understanding of the need of this initiative, how comfortable she is to talk about the topic freely, her communication skills and how well she knows the area. 

The doorstep program generates employment and helps women build life skills like public speaking, data collection, surveying, and sales of women’s health products. 

Each of these features will be available on the Myna Health Application and Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS). The App and IVRS are one-stop access points to access women's health and hygiene products. The following features will be available through the App and IVRS: 

• Girls will receive education on health and nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, and mental health 
• Private consultations to ensure that girls can reach out to a doctor if they are facing any health issues.
• Ability to purchase women’s health products online.
• Women’s Networks (in development): To create a safe space for women and girls to freely talk about their health and hygiene with each other in themed groups. 

Over the past 5 years, Myna has reached out to over 5,50,000 women at the doorstep in the urban slums of Mumbai. We have changed the menstrual hygiene behavior for a majority of these women across 15 slums. Myna has manufactured 12,96,105 pads and distributed 2,25,300 pads at the doorstep. We have more than a 90% repeat customer rate because of the personalized attention each woman receives. Through our "Sponsor a Girl" program, we have supported more than 4,300 girls to receive menstrual hygiene education and kits since 2018 and more than 8,500 girls and boys through our ‘Teach Menses India’ program. In all, we have more than 10 ongoing projects.

Myna is a grassroots based organization, run and managed by its beneficiaries in slums. We are scaling our current reach of 550k women to another 2 Million women and girls from low-income families between the ages of 12 to 45 by 2025. Myna is engaging with girls to improve their health, employment and social outcomes. 

The shift in behaviours can start from home. We first activate the channels to reach the 2 million women, then we initiate them through education awareness programs to increase adoption of the services provided and then ensure the shift in health behaviours sustainably through digitised initiatives. To measure the shift in health behaviours, we will be tracking the outcome and impact through data captured on the Application and IVRS.