Menstrual kits for 300 girls in two Delhi schools

Over ₹2 lakh, raised independently over a year and a half. That is what Tia Saini put behind EmpowerHer, the project she started at 13 to design and distribute menstrual hygiene kits and run awareness sessions for 300 girls across two government schools in Delhi.

What mattered, she says, were the conversations. "Girls who were initially hesitant to even say the word "period" began to ask questions and speak more openly about their health," she says. "That made me realize that while providing products is important, real change comes from knowledge and confidence."

“A pad can meet a need for a day. Knowledge, dignity, and self-reliance can change what comes after.”

Tia Saini

She learned about period poverty in India at 13. There was no team, no funding, no experience. What she could not understand, she says, was how "something so normal which every woman experiences, could still be surrounded by shame and misinformation." "I just knew I wanted to do something instead of simply knowing about the problem," she says. "That idea became EmpowerHer."

EmpowerHer is now entering its second phase, with $2000 of support from the IB Global Youth Action Fund. The plan she set out was for workshops to begin in July, where girls learn how to create their own reusable cloth menstrual products through kits with the required materials, alongside a website carrying educational resources and workshop guidance for a wider audience.

"When I started EmpowerHer at 13, I thought I was building a school project," she says. "Today, I realize that I'm trying to build something much bigger." She wants it to become a community where students, schools, volunteers, parents and supporters all feel they have a role in changing how menstrual health is seen.

"If EmpowerHer can show even one young person that they don't have to wait until they're older to start creating change, then I think it is already doing something much bigger than I ever imagined," she says.