In 2013, the Indian government launched the “Shuchi Scheme”, a menstrual hygiene program aimed at educating adolescent girls about menstrual health and providing free menstrual hygiene products to adolescents who need them. For so many across India, menstrual hygiene products are too expensive and are often seen as a taboo subject. In early 2021, Riddhi Javali (15 | Bengaluru, India) read an article about the halting of this program and knew she had to take action. To offset the impact caused by the end of the Shuchi program, Riddhi founded her own nonprofit, Project Repeat.

Project Repeat aims to help girls in government schools learn about and have access to proper menstrual hygiene products. According to Riddhi, many young girls cannot afford proper menstrual products—some girls living in remote rural areas will not have shops nearby to buy pads—while others who may have access, may not be well-educated on the topic. Riddhi focuses her work on eco-friendly options. Every weekend Riddhi visits government schools in villages outside Bengaluru, where she distributes reusable cloth sanitary napkins for free and educates the girls on menstruation, discussing things like proper maintenance and disposal.

Over the past year, Riddhi has noticed a remarkable improvement in the lives of the students she supports through Project Repeat. The students feel empowered to attend school without having to worry about relying on others for pads, they are comfortable talking about periods and menstrual health more freely, and the amount of menstrual waste has decreased drastically in the villages where Riddhi visited. Her next effort is a fundraiser to buy and distribute reusable cloth pad kits to more schools across India, especially those in rural areas. Riddhi wants all women to have easy access to menstrual products and does not want women to depend on anyone for their monthly needs. Understanding that by empowering women, improvements across other areas of society follow, Riddhi has set a long-term goal of providing materials to unemployed women in rural areas to stitch and sell reusable cloth sanitary napkins.