How can we understand and improve the menstrual experiences of 100 million women in Pakistan?
Design thinking. Innovation. Moonshots. They all sound spectacular when you are in a fancy incubator, startup or a hackathon but can the same concept of problem-solving be brought to one of the most disadvantaged and remote regions of Pakistan?
On October 18, we wanted to test that idea and got the opportunity to take a global initiative i.e DO DAY (The International Day of Doing) and introduce it in a community like Abdul Rehman Goth in in Sindh. This year the focus was to co-create solutions to positively impact the lives of women. From Munich to Kenya, people has gathered and had sourced lots of interesting ideas.
Having worked with the women of Abdul Rehman Goth previously, I knew that health especially menstrual health was a big problem for the women there. I had already tested our chatbot with them and gotten their feedback. But this time, I wanted them to propose their own solutions and discuss the problem in depth amongst themselves.
To give you a context about this community, its made out of roughly 4000 people belonging to Baloch and Pashtun backgrounds. While the community is absolutely friendly, environmentally conscious, its also deeply private, traditional and closed off to outsiders. The men make their living off fishing while the women do not work outside their homes. In fact, if they do work, it is looked down upon. Most girls drop out of school by the time they hit their first period. They also didn't want their faces to be photographed.
Often people ask us what is the value proposition we offer that pushes communities to let us enter their homes. And I think part of it is knowing people who they already trust and love and asking them for an introduction. In this case, it was our lovely friend Usman Iqbal who had already worked with them on several projects. And the other part is that we ensure they have an awesome time and learn something new in the process.
After the team spent a couple of days prior to DO DAY setting up, interviewing, doing focus groups, we had already collected a fair knowledge of the health problems especially menstrual related concerns they had that were not being addressed.
Take for instance, the lack of accessibility and availability of menstrual products in their vicinity, shops and area. The nearest store where they could buy sanitary pads was near Kemari or Boltun area.
They also had myths, confusion, shame and hesitation about menstruation that they grew up with and had a hard time dispelling as adults.
"I told my mother, a jinn had hit me hard in the genitals and that is why I was bleeding," laughed Sanam about her first period.
Each one of them also had a different term for calling her period. Puch, hisaab and mahwari were the most common.
Lack of affordability of menstrual products was a problem as they do not often earn their own income. Pads were treated like a luxury and only worn if they had to go somewhere for very long outside.
At the end of the full-day discussions, storytelling about their first period, tour of their homes and the beach which is close by, we came to the following solutions:
Solution 1- Pad Entrepreneurship led by women-community leaders
If community leaders are provided with sanitary pad supply, women within the community have accessibility to the product even if it isn't available to them in close by stores. The community leaders selling can earn a small commission on the pads but also sell/introduce it to more women and make a living from their homes. For the first lot, we had the brilliant support from a socially responsible, locally made, eco-sanitary napkin company called SANTEX. They gave 30 packets for our first Do Day event.
Solution 2: Needling shame away from Periods
A large part of the women's time of the week is spent in cooking or handiwork. Sewing, stitching or embroidery is a way for them to come together and connect with each other. During these handiwork activities, many important life discussions happen and little girls are always running around and playing while the elder women talk.
One of the women pitched the idea that to really take shame away from sanitary products and menstrual process, they should embroider & beautify the very product that causes them shame. They should use their community's style of embroidery on pads and also talk about this topic within the women themselves.
"Could you take our embroidered pads to Karachi and do an exhibition?" asked Lakhan whose name can be translated to "a girl who is one in a million."
Her idea really was one in a million. We had come a long way in a couple of days considering we started off with them asking me to cover up pads with a chaddar or dupatta so no one could see them from the window who was passing by.
"Could a doctor be invited to our embroidery sessions every now and then so we can ask about our concerns?" asked another community leader. I said I'm going to try my hardest to find a volunteer one the next time I come. And then with this motivation, we started prototyping.
Little girls as young as 5 years old used their crayons, paints and colours on top of pads. They asked all sorts of questions from their mothers while they painted. And the mothers had to give the answers according to the menstrual education we had provided them over DO Day.
Solution 3: Using data science to understand menstrual hygiene needs, gaps and myths
Now this solution comes from our team actively listening to the community. The experience of Aurat Raaj lies in using tech-based approaches and we realised that there is missing data on menstrual problems from the community which makes it difficult for policy action. So we came up with a solution that uses data science especially a map/dashboard that visualizes, compares & maps menstrual hygiene education gaps, product availability, affordability & penetration in areas like Abdul Rehman Goth and puts it online so that relevant stakeholders can take collective and contextualised action. This provides the community with a global voice on their issues.
Jaya even made a quick mockup of the UI of the dashboard:
Putting on our thinking hats, communicating with a beautiful community and stepping away for a moment from Raaji the chatbot was probably the most fun thing I did. We walked away with more knowledge and understanding of why this work is important and why we should continue to do it.
And that brings me to something exciting and wonderful I wanted to announce. The Do School has chosen to specifically bring their mentors, expertise, learning, and tools to six different cities by setting up individualized hubs. And who has been chosen to bring a hub to Karachi?
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Yours truly will no longer complain about the seth investors in Pakistan, the shoddy incubation/acceleration given by government institutions, the lazy uninformed academia leading entrepreneurship centers and actually work on building something I needed desperately while setting up my venture.
My DoX hub will focus on the problems women face and will provide a safe space to them to create solutions for the problems they face. Innovation by women for women is my goal with our Karachi hub.
I'm not sure why I'm adding this responsibility to my existing ones. "Focus on your business model & run Raaji well," say most people with common sense. But I'm not sure that's enough for me if I know the system is broken for social entrepreneurs in Pakistan.
"Why can't I do both?" I wonder.
I'm already searching up zameen.com for places to set up the hub and create this wonderful innovation lab for women.
Thank you team Robin Hood for your support during DO Day 2019 and our wonderful community for welcoming us into their homes and lives.