Uninhibited Wrapped 2022 -
5 Learnings That Shaped Our Year

5 min readDec 31, 2022

Just like that, it’s that time of year when we slow down to reflect on the learnings that shaped 2022.

Menstruation continues to be deeply stigmatised and little talked about across India, resulting in women and girls* living in shameful silence and untouchability each month. In our eighth year of creating safe spaces to de-stigmatise menstruation, we’ve taken leaps in understanding how we can enable equal opportunities for 1 million marginalised adolescent girls and women* by 2025.

*inclusive of non-binary, trans, and people who menstruate

#1 PeriodShala & Shame Resilience

Our behaviour change intervention, PeriodShala, has been doing much more than normalising menstruation and improving schoolgirl* participation. Our sessions build shame resilience (Brené Brown, 2007) enabling girls* to prioritise their wellbeing, and build a stronger sense of agency and self-esteem.

These are key skills and mindsets that enable marginalised girls* to negotiate their right to equal opportunities. We’ll be including new elements in PeriodShala design and evaluation to build further evidence around these outcomes.

Here are girls* taking up space across the 3 rural and tribal Districts we’ve been working in:

#2 Hello Saathi Telemedicine Access for Adolescents

Our free telemedicine helpline, Hello Saathi, continues to be a powerful safe space for men and women living in rural India to seek information and address issues around menstrual, sexual & reproductive health (MH & SRH). This year, demand from local governments and schools encouraged us to make Hello Saathi accessible to adolescents in school. With the continued support of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies, we resolved over 18,600 MH & SRH issues in 2022, with over 100,000 engagements since the helpline was launched in response to COVID-19 in 2020.

#3 Hello Saathi for Sex Workers

In partnership with Swathi Mahila Sangha & Diageo Business Services India, we were piloted Hello Saathi with over 1,500 sex workers in Bengaluru, a highly stigmatised group who face overwhelming barriers when accessing basic health services. A third of sex workers we reached used Hello Saathi to access a free telemedicine consultation with a gynaecologist. We followed this up with a Health Camp for any in-person tests or referrals. We’ll be scaling access across Bangalore in 2024 .

#4 The Period Fellowship Diversity & Inclusion

Respect and building trust is key to PeriodShala enabling behaviour change around a deeply stigmatised topic like menstruation. The Period Fellowship 2022–24 returned post-pandemic more committed to diversity and inclusion than ever.

A cohort of 16 future leaders represented a spread of cultural backgrounds, identities, castes, languages, lived experiences, and ages . It continues to be one of our key levers to impact change at scale. The Period Fellows will spend 24 months implementing PeriodShala and making Hello Saathi accessible across Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Maharashtra.

#5 Scaling with Local Systems & Partners

To remove menstrual health as a barrier for adolescent girls* participating fully in school and life, we learnt to work with local systems, and leverage the strengths of existing organisations in the 4 states we work in. Here are the collaborations we’re excited about:

With UNICEF Madhya Pradesh and District Administration Jhabua, Govt of Madhya Pradesh we launched Mission Mahima, a project aimed at making Jhabua a Menstrual Health Friendly District over the next 5 years. We conducted a PeriodShala ‘Train the Trainer’ with 100 Government frontline workers, secured permissions to implement PeriodShala and Hello Saathi, and gained support to close gaps around period product access, disposal, and improving WASH in schools across the District.

In a similar spirit, our partnership with the Integrated Tribal Development Projects (ITDP) Palghar, Government of Maharashtra aims to bring PeriodShala and Hello Saathi in all schools in their District, supporting efforts to reduce teenage pregnancies.
We’ve signed on as a technical partner for the Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (RKSK), Government of Karnataka to provide PeriodShala education for their Maitri Menstrual Cup Scheme Karnataka 2022, which aims to distribute menstrual cups to adolescents in school.
We partnered with 3 established community based organisations Samarthya Kalyankari Sanstha (Maharashtra), Samaj Pragati Sahayog (Madhya Pradesh), SumArth (Bihar) to build capacity around menstrual health and scale PeriodShala via partners.

Phew! What a year. Together, we can enable girls* to participate fully in school and life.

A tax-deductible donation of just $9 USD can provide 1 girl* with the knowledge, skills, and support to #BecomeUninhibited in advocating for her needs.

We’re a small but dedicated team who are committed to the belief that adolescent girls* deserve to #BecomeUninhibited about their bodies, rights, and opportunities in life. Thank you to our partners, communities, donors, and team for sticking with us in this journey and making a difference for girls, like Deepika.