We are Shivanshi and Ahana, the founders of Unspoken India.

Shivanshi: I grew up in India knowing what the stigma around periods felt like. Not from reading about it. From living it. Taking extra precautions so others wouldn't notice. Staying quiet so nobody would be uncomfortable. At some point I got frustrated enough to stop. Unspoken started because I believed that if the conversation became normal, something would change. Then Ahana and I asked ourselves: who is furthest from this conversation? Who doesn't have the products, let alone the language?

Ahana: Unspoken began as a refusal. A refusal to soften things before saying them. I kept noticing how much of what we live through gets quietly edited before it reaches other people. How language learns to apologize for itself around topics that shouldn't need permission to be discussed. Periods. Health. Things so ordinary they shouldn't require an apology to mention. And yet they do.

The answer to Shivanshi's question, and the reason for this campaign, was the same: the girls in shelters across our own city. Girls with no one to ask. No one to explain. And often, nothing to use.

Periods are not a disease. They are a biological reality for half the population. In India, they are still treated like something to hide.

For girls growing up in orphanages and shelters in Hyderabad, the gap is sharper than most people realize. No family income means no reliable access to period products. No consistent adult support means no one sitting down to explain what is happening to their bodies. Most of the 160 girls we are reaching are at or approaching the age when menstruation begins. Almost none of them have had a real conversation about it.

The silence is not neutral. It has consequences. Girls who don't understand their bodies miss school. Girls without products miss class every month. Girls who have never talked about menstruation without shame carry that silence into adulthood, into their communities, into every girl who comes after them.

Household wealth accounts for nearly 50% of the gap in period product access between girls in India. Girls in shelters, with no family income and limited dietary control, sit at the bottom of that gap. 59.1% of adolescent girls in India have anemia, a condition directly worsened by inadequate iron intake and untreated menstrual blood loss. These girls are among the most vulnerable.

Every rupee raised goes directly toward period kits and workshops delivered across 5 shelters in Hyderabad.

Each kit contains reusable cloth pads designed to last 2 to 3 years, basic hygiene supplies, and iron supplements. We chose reusable deliberately. Disposable pads solve the problem once. A girl who has a reusable pad and knows how to care for it is not dependent on anyone restocking supplies for years. She has ownership over her own menstrual health in a way a disposable pad never gives her.

Alongside every kit, we run an interactive workshop covering what menstruation is and why it happens, how to use and care for reusable products, hygiene practices, nutrition and iron intake, and how to talk about periods without shame. In plain language. Without making it clinical or condescending. We are not an outside organization arriving with pamphlets. We are students in Hyderabad who built Unspoken from the ground up and have already run workshops with girls in this city. We know how to make this feel safe and real.

A product without education solves half the problem. We are doing both.

When a girl understands her body, she stays in school. When her products don't run out, she doesn't miss class every month. When she learns to speak about this without shame, she carries it into her community for the rest of her life.

The girls we are reaching today are the future teachers, caregivers, and community members of Hyderabad. What they learn, and what language they are given to talk about it, does not stay with them. It moves outward. Every shelter we visit becomes a more informed, safer environment for every girl who passes through it after us.

₹250. One girl. One kit. One workshop. Two to three years of impact, minimum.

160 girls. ₹42,000. One campaign.

Donate now. Forward to one person who cares.

A small amount, multiplied by people who pass it on, is how 160 girls get what they need.