Whisper, the leading sanitary napkin brand in India, is driven by it's purpose of 'unleashing confidence in girls to be who ever they want to be'.

The brand also believes that education plays a key role in empowering girls. For 3 decades now, Whisper has been running its school program to prevent girls from dropping out of school because of lack of period awareness, period management.

Despite its efforts, a whopping 23 million girls drop out of school every year in India as they hit puberty. The need of the hour was to find an effective solution to solve the problem at scale.

Our objective was to spread period education, to stop generations of girls from dropping out of school.

Girls lag behind boys in education in India. The adult literacy rate in rural areas for females is 50.6% whereas for males is 74.1%. Girls are at a higher risk of dropping out of school by the time they hit puberty.

Every year a whopping 23 million girls, drop out of school, because of one missing piece of information on menstruation.

Menstruation is a topic so taboo that no one in society, not even mothers talk about it to their daughters. That’s why 71% of girls in India are unaware of periods until they get it. Lack of information makes them believe that a natural process like menstruation – is a sign of death, disease, shame.

The only place girls could have learnt about menstruation is at school. But sadly because of the same taboo even the national council of education never printed this chapter in schoolbooks.

MISSING CHAPTER: For the first time in India, we designed the Missing Chapter explaining the simple biology behind periods and sparked a revolution.

This chapter was read out in our film, through news readers on TV, by citizens and influencers on social media. We painted the chapter on school walls in 28 different native art styles and languages, for girls living in media dark areas. We even printed the chapter on our packs. We designed a strong symbol to stand for period education. An amalgamation of both period and education in one unit. Last but not the least, we launched a petition to include the chapter on periods in national schoolbooks, to make it a compulsory part of curriculum.

Primary Target Audience: Young girls (aged 12+ years) in metros and rural India, on the verge of entering puberty and at risk of exiting school due lack of awareness of periods and how to manage them.

Secondary Audience: Indian citizens concerned about female education; Key stakeholders like government organizations and ministers with the power to change age old education system; School teachers responsible for imparting knowledge in schools. Influencers who wanted to join our cause.

We aimed to fight for education through education. To reduce female illiteracy by fighting off period illiteracy. If schoolbooks were missing the chapter on periods, we had to not only write it and spread it, but also make it a compulsory part of schoolbooks. Our strategy was to increase mental and physical availability of the missing chapter. Make it easy to access through various mediums and easy to understand.

FILM:

We started with a film telling the story of 3 rebellious girls reading the chapter out loud in school, to trigger the conversation nationally.

TV, DIGITAL, RETAIL:

The red piece of paper (the missing chapter) and the bleeding vulva logo became the symbol of our revolution. News channels read the chapter live on prime time TV. We urged Indian citizens & Influencers to read out the chapter on social media. We used our packs and retail space to take the conversation forward.

OUTDOOR WALL ART & PETITION:

In collaboration with local artists from 25 states, we adapted the chapter in native art and languages and put it up on school walls in media dark areas to reach girls in every corner of India. We also launched a petition to add the chapter on periods and to make it a compulsory part of schoolbooks.

In a historic decision, the government committed to change a century-old education system by adding the missing chapter on periods in schoolbooks.

1 million+ Petitions

11 million Girls Given Period Education

2.5 million Packs bought (Above Target)

25 million Views on YouTube

Views on OTT – 3 million

38.5 million people joined the movement

Social media/Digital

13Million reach on social media (more than 2X versus yearly average)

207,000 impressions on the filter (98% from females)

More than 35Million e-com impressions

PR value – USD 1.3 Million

42% coverage in CAT A publications

Total reach - 14.44 Million