Human trafficking in India is a horrifying crisis. Thousands of victims, primarily women and girl children, are exploited in red-light areas. Over 10,659 cases were reported between 2018-2022, but experts say that these numbers are likely a fraction of the reality due to underreporting, yet they still do expose the magnitude of the crisis. Girls make up 71.4% of missing children in India and a large number of these girls end up at red-light areas. Sex trafficking is particularly gruesome, with girls as young as 12 sold for as little as a few thousand rupees.

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We at Myna Mahila are irked by women’s untapped burning potential. When they can do so much but are chained due to no fault of their own. We believe that women in India have as much potential as women around the world, but it is unrealised. Taboos around their bodies kept them silent even when they suffered miserably. Hence, three slum community leaders and Suhani founded the Myna Mahila Foundation for women in slums to speak up openly about the issues they were most afraid to discuss aloud, like the chatty “Myna” bird. Our goal is to bring these women with incredible potential at par with others in their generation around the world. We need to support them to be at a fair game – that is first providing them with the basic amenities they need to grow. This is the power Myna Health brings.Myna is a grassroots-based organisation, run and managed by its beneficiaries in slums, and has three operational units: <ol><li>Myna Health</li><li>Myna Employ </li><li>Myna Research</li></ol>Since it was founded in 2015, Myna Health has been providing women with health education and access to affordable menstrual health products at their doorstep. With its core beliefs around providing women with financial independence to truly empower them to make decisions. Myna Employ also generates employment opportunities and employability skills for girls and women in urban slums. Myna Research focuses on Myna’s data-driven approach, which helps us make strategic decisions based on data interpretation. Overall, Myna Mahila shifts women’s health behaviour, builds their confidence and provides means to achieve financial freedom.Over the past 5 years, Myna has reached out to over 12,000,000 women at the doorstep in the urban slums of Mumbai. We have changed the menstrual hygiene behaviour 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 personalised attention each woman receives. Through our 'Sponsor a Girl' programme, 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’ programme. In all, we have more than 10 ongoing projects.Myna Mahila Foundation is honoured to be one of seven charities chosen to benefit from donations marking the wedding of Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle. Myna is a celebrated organisation and has been recognised by Forbes 30 under 30, the Queen of England, the Queen's Commonwealth Trust, David Beckham and been featured on leading media outlets such as CNBC, BBC, TIME, Vogue, Glamour, NDTV, The Quint, Forbes, Times of India and Hindustan Times, Better India to name a few. We have also received the Mother Teresa Youth Memorial Award and are finalists for the Cisco Global Citizen Prize. 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.

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Suhani Jalota

 Sweta

Myna Helpline - Tabassum

Mayur Nilange

Myna Mahila Foundation

This nonprofit is registered as a charitable trust under section 12A of India's Income Tax Act, 1961.

This nonprofit is registered under section 80G of India's Income Tax Act, 1961. This means you can deduct 50% of the donation you made through your tax return.

This nonprofit is registered under Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), 2010. This means it can accept donations from foreign nationals.

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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:<ul><li>Education sessions through the Myna Health Education and Empowerment Series (MHEES) which includes sexual reproductive health, diet and nutrition, and mental health</li><li>Access to health and hygiene products like sanitary pads, medicines, etc. </li><li>Tele-health services</li><li>Life skill sessions and vocational training sessions to employ women. </li><li>They also serve as pad production and packaging of sanitary and maternity pad units</li></ul>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).<ul><li>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. </li><li>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.</li></ul>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. <ul><li>Our pad production women create awareness about women’s health and sell women’s health products. </li><li>They observe the surrounding environment, behavioural traits, and probe accordingly. </li><li>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. </li><li>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. </li></ul>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: <ul><li>Girls will receive education on health and nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, and mental health </li><li>Private consultations to ensure that girls can reach out to a doctor if they are facing any health issues.</li><li>Ability to purchase women’s health products online.</li><li>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. </li></ul> 
 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.

Myna's Mission 2 Million

With more than 320 million women in India without access to basic health and hygiene needs like menstrual needs, compelling them to drop out of school and the labour force, Myna Mahila Foundation (MMF) is on a mission to empower women by improving access to health and hygiene products, and shift health behaviours. Women are starting at the -10m mark (on a racetrack) in some of the most vulnerable communities in India. Without starting at 0m along with everyone else, they are compelled to a life with worse health outcomes.  
 Pledge a Period aims to increase access to women’s health related products, create awareness and bring attitudinal change by providing underprivileged girls and women with-<ol><li>Hygiene kit for a month which includes sanitary pads, underwear, face mask, sanitizer </li><li>Paper disposal bags for each pad </li><li>Education and awareness about Menstrual Hygiene provided in these ways:  </li></ol><ul><li>Virtual education through the Myna Mahila Health Application Dispensers for easy access to health and hygiene materials (such as sanitary pads, face masks, etc.) without any shame of having to approach a chemist shopkeeper</li><li> Sensitization Vehicle (Bus/Van) to provide sanitary pads and other hygiene materials for women, education, and awareness</li><li>Address livelihood concerns among the urban slum communities by creating tech-job opportunities </li></ul>4. Safety gear for our field team reach out to women and girls in the remote areas of urban slums 
 Women often lack an enabling environment to prioritize their health, and lack the willingness to shift their health behaviours. The Myna Launchpad works on a three step process : To enable women to have access to menstrual health products through every available means (whether it is at their doorstep, at a nearby chemist shop, at a local Myna centre, ATMs, or through the mobile application and Interactive Voice Recording System (IVRS) on any available mobile device). 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, and then ensure the shift in health behaviours sustainably.

Pledge A Period

Myna Mahila Foundation, among other things, creates a network of young female entrepreneurs by partnering with self-help groups in urban slums that produce and distribute high quality, affordable menstrual hygiene products. Through our menstrual hygiene education programmes: Sponsor a Girl and Teach Menses India, we have been instrumental in streamlining adoption of safer menstrual hygiene management practices among underprivileged adolescent girls and women. Currently, we are assisting vulnerable families involved in the informal sector whose primary source of income is dependent on earning daily wages. Each of these families have members living in very close proximity, often in spaces smaller than 25x15sqft - without access to water to maintain basic hygiene. This is unfavorable to the families as COVID-19 is highly contagious. We have identified 600 families from four interior community pockets in the vicinity of our pad production unit. To address food safety, we distributed packed meals to 10000+ individuals. We further expanded the meal pack initiative into a ration distributing programme for coverage of daily meals to shift focus from daily distribution to resources till the end of lockdown period to minimize potential exposure of the disease amongst the staff and the community while collecting the meals. We have reached over to ~300 families through this project.There is a vast need to provide PPE for civilian use as well - the lack of protective materials such as masks, gloves and sanitizers in such dense clusters, where social distancing is not viable at all times, is detrimental to public health. The combined strategy of distribution of essentials, and sensitization will plug any gaps in effective addressal of COVID-19 among underprivileged community pockets. 
 We are adapting our response to COVID-19 by implementing an 8 point plan towards COVID-19 relief:Food/sanitary packet relief: Supporting ~300-600 families daily with ration and sanitary packetsCOVID sensitization: To understand disease prevalence in slums and providing awareness about facts around the disease and their local resources to help them manage it, we are reaching out to ~3,000 women (along with a group of volunteers making the calls post training)Women's Helpline: We have set up a women's helpline in the M-East ward area in Mumbai to record incidents of domestic violence cases, sexual/reproductive health issues, and anything else a woman wants to talk about during these times. Additionally We are alerting our existing beneficiaries and their families (thousands of slum residents) through WhatsApp groups and SMS notifications, about local resources, contact numbers, and tips.Face mask manufacturing and provision: We have a sanitary napkin manufacturing unit and a tailoring boutique that we are repurposing to make face masks and then distributing these masks along with the sanitary kits and to health providersOnline webinars: We have been optimizing our offline education modules and awareness sessions on online platforms to facilitate virtual learning around health and hygiene. Instagram Live and Zoom have been piloted for sessions. Stigma research with local informal health providers and residents: As part of a Stanford research project, we are surveying informal health providers and people around the stigma around COVID and social distancing, and how that is preventing access to care in order to increase local capacity to respond to the health shocks.Disease Surveillance: Data collection among community. This data is inclusive of comprehensive details on prevalence, symptoms, pattern of reporting cases and mortality rates (if any). This will help towards development of a projection structure stemming from a community perspective to understand transmission levels. As a result, community specific strategies can be developed for further adoption currently and in the future. Myna Mahila Mobile Health App: We have launched an app to promote awareness among women and girls on COVID-19 resources and managing periods effectively during the lockdown. 
 We would like to designate this as a pilot-to-permanent programme to expand our reach within the healthcare pipeline revolving around hygiene. At this time, this project will contribute towards relieving the burden from local healthcare networks by enabling reduced transmission at the community level thereby freeing up medical resources and facilities for the treatment of infected COVID-19 patients.

Myna Mahila Foundation

Myna's Mission 2 Million

Pledge A Period

8 point project for COVID- 19 relief

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