I.M. Pad

The goal was simple: make a sanitary pad which was cheap and effective enough for these women to afford, and even more ambitiously, use materials that are easy to find.

Where the team stayed and worked to produce the sanitary napkins

With women from the village that work at the mini factories.

In India, 30% of girls drop out of school once they reach puberty due to the lack of proper menstrual hygiene. This issue, identified during an internship at the World Toilet Organisation, resulted in Innovative and Manageable Sanitary Pad (I.M.Pad) being started by a team of three like-minded students.

The team came up with an ingenious solution of producing low-cost and biodegradable sanitary napkins out of the highly absorbent pulp fibre of water hyacinth, an aquatic weed indigenous to rural India. Taking their project one step further, a team member, Andrew, took a year off from school to develop this idea with an Indian social enterprise, Aakar Innovations. Since then, 11 ‘mini’ factories that produce pads have been started, providing work for about 220 village women. The greatest satisfaction came about when a school supported their outreach efforts and their students now continue to attend classes.

About the Project Team

The project team consisted of Nanyang Business School students Ho Yen Yee, Tanvi and and Andrew Yin.