Madhvi Dalal is the founder of PadMad Kenya, an initiative committed to improving women’s health by teaching society about menstrual health and keeping girls in education through environmentally responsible action. Through education, empowerment, and sustainability, PadMad aims to end period poverty. Right for Education joined Madhvi to discuss her insightful work.

R:Ed: Please could you initially give an overview of your project?

We are PadMad, a social enterprise based on period poverty. We started in Kenya addressing period poverty with a sustainable solution. Now, it’s located in different countries in Africa, Europe, and Asia. The idea is to promote positive periods, talking about management and educating girls and boys. We have to think about cultural differences, the lack of knowledge, the lack of accessibility, and the affordability of the product. We manufacture the reusable pads. The pads themselves account for 30% of what we do. The main ideas behind the initiative are to provide Menstrual Health education and to keep girls in education. PadMad open forums to talk about periods, puberty, infections, and management alternatives.

R:Ed: Why is your work so crucial?

Pre-COVID, 65% of girls and women couldn’t afford pads in Kenya. A quarter of the curriculum is missed by girls in secondary school due to periods.

I used to work with students to teach them yoga and dance. These girls were already privileged enough to be getting an education, but they were missing school and falling behind because of a lack of sanitary pads. I didn’t understand and wanted to know if it was an urban slum or nationwide issue. I travelled a bit in Kenya to see what was happening out there. That is when I really came face to face with what girls must go through. I learned about a trend called sex for pads, which is basically transactional sex in return for a pack of pads.

Women also use weird and wonderful things to make pads: mattresses, leaves, pellets wrapped in tissues as tampons, and even other people’s discarded pads, to be able to go to work. I didn’t want to think of an initiative which dealt with disposable pads, because we have to remember, where are these girls disposing them? There’s no fancy garbage collection. Pads are expensive. If you donate a year’s supply, families need food and pads get sold. I wanted to find a solution which was a little bit more sustainable and environmentally friendly. I developed an 100% natural and 100%, biodegradable product. It has no toxins. Disposable pads have dioxin which sometimes causes cramp. A disposable pad can take up to 800 years to decompose. Our pads will biodegrade in six months.

We had to design a product which makes girls feel confident and is accepted by the community. Use of the cup is not widely accepted. We had to avoid assumptions that schools have private wash facilities and running water.

There was an incident where a girl was shamed in school, because she stained her clothes, at nine o’clock in the morning. The teacher shamed her in front of the class and sent her home. Her mum left for work, and when she came back, the girl had hung herself. I hear a lot of stories, including orphan kids living in an educational system where they have to sleep with teachers just to get pads.

With the knowledge and with the product, girls don’t have to go begging, they don’t have to go through transactional sex.

Women having to help themselves out during a period. Women sleep with other women in the community to get pads, to be able to go to work, to earn money to buy food. Those kind of stories don’t always come to light because women can’t speak about it. There’s a huge embarrassment attached. The whole project is for people to understand. They’re very desperate. During COVID when schools were closed for about nine months, a lot of girls became pregnant. Now, a lot of them are not going back. The reason why they got pregnant is because they’d have one or two or three boyfriends who would buy them pads or shoes or food. Already the economy wasn’t great. And already parents are not looking after you. So, people wander around and it has become a problem.

R:Ed: Could you describe the product?

Initially, I thought I’d teach all the girls and boys in the schools how to stitch a pad. However, that failed because the curriculum is tough. The girls don’t have time. Also, some girls don’t even have access to material. Now, we train marginalized women (widows, those HIV positive, single mums who have been abused) to stitch. Women who are in danger can come and stitch in my house. I buy the cloth and have it washed, cut, and dressed for quality assurance. They don’t have to buy the material. I am the market. I’ll buy each and every single pad they make.

The pads will be used by thousands of girls, so we have to accommodate for light and heavy flows. You can also use liners for maintaining hygiene sake because infections could last for months. We had a pilot in Aberdeen with 50 schoolgirls. They said that the pads were too big for them to wear tighter clothes, so we adapted the kits. We got feedback from girls in Kenya who were embarrassed to hang the pads outside, so we use printed material to make them funkier and more made them reversible with wings.

I use the product and they’ve lasted me more than five years. We have to have an expiry date, so we say five years, but naturally they should last longer.

R:Ed: What have you done to educate people?

We’ve done workshops with over 20,000 girls now. There is a curriculum in the Kenyan education system called reproductive system, it’s pretty much textbook knowledge, which is not so practical for the girls to know. Like: a period is 28 days. But the kids need practical information: okay, this is normal, this is when you need to seek medical help. Describing what a urinary tract infection is, what abuse at home looks like, how to maintain hygiene during a period, what the potential consequences of transactional sex are, and what periods actually look like. I insist that the boys are also there.

R:Ed: What kind of impact do you think these discussions have had in schools on stigma and the issue of taboo?

A workshop can be anywhere from one hour to four hours. We talk about FGM and empowerment, we do yoga. The idea is not for them to talk when I’m there, but for them to be comfortable enough to talk when I’ve left. It’s a celebration, let’s talk about why it happens. What does a period look like? The idea is to develop a space safe space for the children. We go through scenarios and encourage communication between teachers and students. The boys say, ‘we’ll never tease’, and the teachers say, ‘we will support them’. It’s less about the content of the workshop, it’s more about building confidence for everyone to talk.

R:Ed: What positive consequences have you witnessed?

There’s a place here in Kenya called Isiolo. It’s a tough place to go to, there’s a lot of tension there: political trouble and terrorism. Not many people go there, especially not to address issues. When I got there, my only request was for the boys and girls to be able to discuss. There was a fancy tent for us, the dignitaries, and another big tent for the kids. They had invited the parents, the kids, boys, and girls, and also the chiefs of the community. It is predominantly Muslim and it was during Ramadan. I was really petrified because of my different skin colour being a female going to talk to them about a period during Ramadan. But, it was so successful. The girls asked questions in front of the chiefs. The chiefs asked practical questions too as they may never have heard of these things, they just may not know. The boys are always the most inquisitive because suddenly the taboo is being spoken about. So yeah, it’s working very well, these kinds of conversations are helping.

R:Ed: Are you looking to expand to different countries?

We are trying to make a product which is more affordable. We also want to sell across global platforms, especially in the UK, Germany, and Sweden.

R:Ed: What’s your opinion of Kenya’s new menstrual health policy?

It’s a very big step. I think it’s great that it’s out, but I’m not sure about the impact. It’s a very difficult process.

R:ED: What issues have you faced?

I haven’t really come across major problems. I mean, there is a big misconception about infections and reusables. People generally think that because single use pads are white and from a pack, they’re sterile and healthier for us than reusable pads. The challenge of ignorance is the big one. Another misconception is that you need to have lots of water to wash reusable pads properly, which is absolutely incorrect. We’ve demonstrated a gazillion times how little water you need. If you have enough water to wash your underwear, you’re good to go. Some old men who make decisions don’t know, the chemistry of blood, the chemistry of menstruation, the consistency, the viscosity, and so many other things. These are major scientific challenges. It is difficult to convince donors that we are thinking of a cleaner product.

R:Ed: How can we get involved?

We have so many avenues. Donations would obviously be welcome. The younger generation are doing a great job. I’m terrible at social media. Whenever a younger person comes in and asks to help I say, ‘You guys are good at social media. Why don’t you, whenever you see a story, put it out there and let people discuss.’ Let people learn what young girls experience, what the actual problem is. Girls need to use online forums to learn what goes into disposable pads. The Deluxe Kit, including a range of pads, is about five and a half, six pounds, which can save a girl from prostitution for five or six years. These kind of conversations are very helpful. It is very helpful for people to talk about having a choice and moving towards reusables. In the last 50 years we have had a problem with consumerism. Environmentally speaking, we need to make conscious decisions, because this is a generation which needs to say, ‘Okay, we’re not going to throw pads out every cycle, we have to think about some kind of reusable alternative.’ Whether it’s the cup or the reusable pad, or whatever it is, I think every menstruator needs to know that they should be able to choose for themselves and make their own conscious choice.

Explore the PadMad website here, where you can buy sanitary towels or donate:

https://padmadkenya.com/about-us/