Dignity Within Reach: Help provide affordable sanitary-pad access for women and girls.

Most women know the panic of realizing they need a pad and do not have one.

Maybe it happens during a school day, between meetings, or on a long commute.

Then begins the familiar mental calculation: Who can I ask? Is there a shop nearby? Can I leave? Will anyone notice?

And even when sanitary napkins are available, the stigma follows. At shops, pads are often quickly wrapped in paper, as if they were something to hide rather than a basic hygiene product that half the population may need.

That tells us something important. Most spaces in our country are still not designed with women in mind. They often lack provision of one very basic need: safe, easy, and dignified access to menstrual hygiene products such as sanitary napkins.

A poll by UNICEF found that 44% of girls do not have access to basic menstrual hygiene facilities at home, at work, or at school. It also found that 28% of respondents had missed school or work while on their period, mainly because they were afraid of staining their clothes or uniform, worried that boys would find out, or were dealing with period-related pain.

For women and girls, this can mean missed school, interrupted work, discomfort, anxiety, hygiene risks, and the quiet stress of managing a basic need without support.

That is why this fundraiser matters.

Through this program, i-Care, with its implementation partner Davaam, is supporting sanitary napkin vending machines in selected nonprofit spaces. The program begins with school and college girls at Education Trust Nasra Schools, NOWPDP with more partner organizations set to join in the coming months, so that more women and girls can access menstrual hygiene products privately, reliably, and with dignity.

In commercial spaces such as malls, users often pay the full retail price of approximately Rs. 50 per pad. Through this program, the machines will not only be installed in nonprofit spaces, but access will be subsidized to approximately Rs. 20 per pad for beneficiaries.

This is a practical response to a very real need. It helps create spaces where girls, students, staff, and patients are not expected to hide, leave, ask around, or suffer through the day in silence.

Project Target

i-Care aims to support the installation of 50 sanitary napkin vending machines, including one year of maintenance.

Total fundraising goal: USD 78,950

Choose the level of support that works for you and help place dignity within reach for women and girls across i-Care’s partner spaces.

Fund a machine. Support ongoing pad access. Or contribute any amount to help make menstrual hygiene access normal, private, and dignified in the spaces where women and girls learn, work, receive care, and show up every day.