Delivering menstrual health using decentralized machine technology

Saral Design works on a menstruator-led, community-based program that takes a three-pronged approach to:

1. eradicate the stigma surrounding menstruation

2. provide livelihood opportunities to low-income women 

3. ensure access to affordable sanitary napkins in low-income communities

Suhani Mohan, CEO, Co-Founder, Materials Science (IIT Bombay),  experience-MHM(6years), investment banking(3years)

Kartik Mehta, CTO, Co-Founder, Engineering Design (IIT Madras), experience-MHM machines(6years), special-purpose machine design(3years)

In India alone, there are 355 million menstruating women. With 70% of the population living on the margins, very few women have access to basic menstrual hygiene products. 88% of menstruating women in India use home-grown alternatives like old fabric, rags, sand, ash, wood shavings, newspapers, dried leaves, hay, and plastic. Girls are typically absent for 20% of the school year due to menstruation, which is the second major reason, after household work, for girls to miss school. 70% increase in incidence of reproductive tract infections owing to poor menstrual hygiene. 70% of mothers consider menstruation 'dirty', perpetuating a culture of shame and ignorance. Women have ignored their health to protect the health of their family members time and again. For women at the base of the pyramid, accessibility to hygienic products and awareness are distant reality.

Given the fact that most women do not have access there is a scope to create product awareness and make local women sell hygiene products in their communities to solve economic and matters concerning women’s intimate hygiene. This becomes even more critical now as the typical FMCG supply chains are getting disrupted due to the Pandemic.

Machine Partners and their employees: Machine Partners are local entrepreneurs/not for profit organizations/SHGs in slums and rural area. They create an enterprise with employment for 6-10 people. We offer them to set up SWACHH machines and produce sanitary pads in local set-up. This also aligns with government schemes to eliminate poverty and create local jobs in India.

Sanginis (Companion): Improving the income of marginalized women, we provide training on Menstrual Health Management and door to door sales of sanitary pads. Sanginis can be a part of existing local non-profit network, SHGs or Government health worker. They earn on a margin basis per packet sold. They learn leadership and sales skills as well as have a means of improved earnings through our last mile distribution model.

Menstruators in low-income geographies: Lack of knowledge on period is associated with unhygienic and unmanageable periods, absenteeism in school/work, negligence towards reproductive health resulting in diseases and infections. Thus, we strengthen the whole ecosystem of MHM by providing education in low-income and marginalized areas through experts. We focus on improving behavior change communication of menstruators. We are planning to apply a whole family approach to make the programs more inclusive to reduce taboos around menstruation.

We follow a 4 A approach of Awareness, Accessibility, Affordability and Advocacy for bringing out change in the menstrual hygiene space. Our business model supports entrepreneurs in more than one way which includes building raw material supply chain, training of sales outreach agents, training production teams of our partners in efficiently operating the machine as well as building market linkages.

We empower women by generating awareness and providing good quality affordable pads to menstruators, at the same time providing them an opportunity to earn by selling these pads.

Saral follows a decentralized model that offers local manufacturers and/or NGOs or local government entities to set up SWACHH machines and produce sanitary napkins in a local set-up. Our model supports local entrepreneurs who are willing to improve the menstrual hygiene situation in their geographies by setting up our innovation where they can employ 6-8 women in production. We involve 250-300 women per location for door-to-door sales of sanitary pads. This leverages chances of local employment in line with government schemes across different states to eliminate poverty and create local jobs in India. We will be doing this with the marginalized communities.

Theory of Change: 

Input: Machine, Raw Material, Training, Human Resource, Technology. Activities: Machine Installation, training, Sanginis identification and training for door-to-door distribution, research, Awareness generation, Monitoring and evaluation 

Output: 50 machines set up with support from Saral, training completed, 175000 people aware on MHM. 

Outcome: Employment generation, Increased use of Pads, Reduced MHM myths and Taboos, People following hygienic practices, Improved economic status of women. 

Impact: Economically independent women, No discrimination based on menstruation. 

Enabler: Entrepreneurs willing to start menstrual pad business, women interested in selling pads, community willing to get awareness on menstruation. 

Assumptions: Sanginis, bring more women to join as Sanginis. Menstruators convince others to try Saral's pads. 

Risks: Resistance for non-usage of pads, use of pads for more than 8 hours causing irritation or infection. 

Evidence - Market Demand Since 2017, 40 machines were sold in India and 6 low income countries. Through these machines, more than 10 million sanitary pads were produced. With an average consumption of 10 pads per month over 3 years, around 300,000 menstruators have used our sanitary pads

We plan to replicate the business in a box model in 50 locations (slums/rural areas). Our first year will go in identification of places, probable machine partners and Sanginis, baseline studies, designing areas specific solutions and installing around 10 machines with basic level training of staff and Sanginis.

In a span of 3 years, we are planning to reach out to 3500 menstruators in 50 places, i.e, 175,000 menstruators through awareness on MHM aiming at improved knowledge of 107,380 menstruators (61.36%) and creating jobs for 300 people (6 people/production unit).

We will train 12,500 women (Sanginis) around 250 women/ production units. Out of these, we expect 6250 women to continue as Sanginis (based on previous experience)

We will engage with state governments to empanel our Machine Partners (specially women’s groups) to participate in their sanitary pad procurement tenders, which ensures guaranteed sale and improved capacity utilization. With the above, we will be able to reach out to 1 million menstruators with improved product access in a span of 3 years through 50 machines.

We will develop a log-frame for carrying out the project activities including research as well as execution plans. Need assessment KAP study in 10% of the locations as it is difficult to conduct study in all locations. These locations will have a similar environment as that of most chosen locations.

Sales and usage data will be collected from our partners and will be analysed by us. This will give us a clear insight of how our product is adopted in the given location.

M&E plan for research and implementation to track behavior change among women and girls receiving education on MHM and understanding product usage over 3 years. Outcomes will be tracked on the basis of baseline and endline.

Recruit 3 Monitoring and Evaluation Officers for this project , who will be actively involved in monitoring of the program at each level and doing field visits to collect case studies and success stories. They will also provide hand holding support to Program Officers and machine partners.

Develop a mechanism for monitoring, with checklists and reporting formats to collect data on a monthly basis. Quarterly report shared with partners and will publish case studies and best practices from the field.

Geo specific - In our past experience, we came across challenges pertaining to weather conditions (floods, heat waves etc), local festivals, elections, occupation of women (during agricultural seasons) and remoteness of location. Conducting feasibility study in locations before implementation helps in better planning and implementation.

Administrative challenges: we faced reluctance of administrative authorities to cooperate with the project that slowed down our project. Going forward, we are looking at engaging government stakeholders at the time of project planning itself to have better cooperation.

Local partner: Identifying the right Machine Partner is critical for project’s long term success. For new partners, we are developing a success metric to understand who will be more likely to run the production unit successfully.

Data tracking for Sangini sales: Compliance to pen & paper documentation is poor at a Sangini level. We plan to incentivize and digitize this process to make it less cumbersome for Sanginis

Pandemic: The Pandemic is here to stay with the second wave in India. Lockdowns impose unpredictability and risks to program implementation. In the last year, we have tweaked our communications to make it more digital and also reduced the number of people per workshop to align with COVID-19 guidelines

Grand Challenges Canada , Millennium Alliance (USAID, DFID, FICCI supported program), Yes Foundation, Marico Innovation Foundation, Autodesk Impact Entrepreneur Program, Department of Science & Technology, Government of India

Apart from the funding support, that will help in technology development and capacity building, The MIT Solve network can help us find partners who can assist in making simple application tools for Sanginis. Compliance to pen & paper documentation is poor at a Sangini level. We plan to incentivize and digitize this process to make it less cumbersome for Sanginis. 

Desai Foundation: Our implementation partners in Gujarat and Maharashtra, conduct health and hygiene camps, MHM, vocational training and entrepreneurship. They have set-up 4 Swachh machines in 3 states. Plans to expand in more districts they have active presence in

Water.org: We are also in conversation with Water.org for supporting financing solutions for new machine entrepreneurs.

 UNFPA- Bihar: Our proposed partner in Bihar , plans to start a 1 year project in the upcoming financial year (2021-22).

The Pad Project: The Oscar winning documentary makers have partnered with us to set-up sanitary pad making machines in 2 locations in India and one each in Afghanistan and Srilanka. 

Sukhibhava, working on improving menstrual hygiene. They provide yearly period fellowship by onboarding 14 fellows from different regions and assigning them to specific geographies .

Oowomaniya is a social enterprise working towards improving education on sexual and reproductive systems by conducting awareness.

YP Foundation NGO that aims to empower young people to access critical information about their health, education, and rights to enable them to analyze and use it to become successful advocates for youth rights.

The Change Designers: a multi-disciplinary communication organization crafting media for social, organizational and behavioural change.