[
  {
    "start": 0.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: so earlier this year, I was in the World Economic Forum in Davos and there was a forum on menstrual health and then the the lady was like, okay, next year, what do we want to hear? You know, what do we want to talk about with regards to period poverty and menstrual health? I stood up and said, I really don't want to hear anymore. we're in 2025. Really, if there are people on the ground with solutions, we just need to finance those and get them going.",
    "end": 108.0
  },
  {
    "start": 108.0,
    "text": "Patrick Hypscher: Madhvi thanks for making the time to talk about PadMad Before we start, who are you and why did you start PadMad in the first place?",
    "end": 117.0
  },
  {
    "start": 117.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: Okay, thank you for having me Patrick. My name is Madhvi and I have been in Kenya for the last decade actually. But by profession I'm a pharmacist. I used to own a pharmacy in Wales, in the UK. And by profession I'm also a dancer and a yoga instructor. So when I moved to Kenya, although I became a pharmacist, I didn't really practice so I was just... looking for things to do, get out of the house and I was basically teaching yoga in some of the slums here in Nairobi so that I could just understand the community a little bit more and also practice. So as I was doing the circuit and it took some time actually over one or two years when I finally got a rapport with the girls and then they said They were missing school not because they were sick but because of their ⁓ period and that was a bit alien to me. I said, what would you mean because of your period? And that's how I came about. Well, not founding PadMad because then there was a lot of legwork, a lot of understanding, but that's how it initiated.",
    "end": 184.0
  },
  {
    "start": 184.0,
    "text": "Patrick Hypscher: Okay, and what's the reason behind missing school because of the period?",
    "end": 189.0
  },
  {
    "start": 189.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: Yeah, so well, basically it's a multi-fold kind of issue. In Kenya, statistics is apparent, apparently 65 % of the girls and women cannot afford pads and that's what's termed as period poverty. But when I heard these girls and I said, okay, you're missing school because of, it's defined as lack of access or affordability of pads or menstrual solutions. So as I was walking around and you know, doing my kind of documenting about really how big is this problem and more importantly why is there a problem. So when I was going to rural areas, I used to hear we all did wonderful things. I remember when I was up country once and there was a street woman and she was, she basically said that she would go through other people's trash so that she could find some pads so she could just wear it for a couple of hours and you know, be able to sell her tomatoes. So. Those kind of dramatic things obviously got to me. Other girls very often use mattresses or blankets or pieces of cloth. Some girls also use leaves and they actually compete with goats for that kind of waterproof leaf. But most importantly, I think what really shifted me and what I was doing was I was interviewing or kind of documenting it at an orphanage here in Nairobi. in a slum and we were just going through, know, where'd you get your pads from, where'd you get your pads from with the teenage girls. And so one of them said, I get them from here. And I said, no, I know you don't. And that's why we're here. So where'd you get your pads from? And she said, no, no, I get them from here. So what she was insinuating and she was speaking Kiswahili was that she used to give transactional sex to a teacher there and get her pads. And I said, well, really, you know, this needs to be authentic. let's, this place is so small. I mean, I just want to, you know, walk me through this. And I remember she walked me through the back and I remember how I felt and I was feeling really quite sick. And then I thought, well, you know, she goes through it month on month. And then she ended that conversation just by really being blank in the face. And she said, depending on the quality of sex, she gets one or two packs of pads. So that really brought me a notch down or two. that's when I said, you know, I really need to stop just walking around and documenting. I really just need to do something. The only thing is I didn't know what to do. I just knew I didn't want to give out disposable pads because it was just not sustainable and it was causing a lot of ⁓ pollution. Hence, one thing led to another. You know, I was in Lamu Yoga Festival and by coincidence, ⁓ Some of my colleagues were talking about reusable pads in Philippines. So, yeah, and then the story went from there.",
    "end": 348.0
  },
  {
    "start": 348.0,
    "text": "Patrick Hypscher: OK, so tell us more about the story, how it went from there. What did you start? And what are you doing right now?",
    "end": 354.0
  },
  {
    "start": 354.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: Yeah, so I started pretty naively. I they taught me how to make reusable pads by hand. And I said, would you mind if we implement this here in Kenya? You know, I can already see the need here. And even whilst I was in Lamu, I phoned some of my friends and I said, look, I'm coming back. Let's just do this. And we went to the first school. Although we're with material, you know, with old t-shirts and... needles and threads and said, okay, now this is what we're going to do. Obviously that was very naive. It was just, you know, I really thought that teaching boys and girls in schools, they would sustain themselves or make enough for their moms, et cetera. That program clearly did not work out. Then I thought, okay, if it's fine, if this doesn't work out, how about I empower women or moms in the communities by teaching them how to make them. And then they would then, you know, make enough for themselves and maybe even sell for the community and make little businesses. That again was pretty naive because I used to set up, I'd call them a hub, but just say one or two machines in the middle of wherever and train a group of women. And then once I left and the resources finished, I was expecting them to continue. And what I found after following through with this, was that the quality was compromised and know there was just so much other things like you know they would sell at different prices and compete against each other and it just was not making sense and more importantly I didn't want to cause an even bigger problem of infections which what I was trying to avoid. So eventually I scrapped all that and well at the heart of it was still to employ women and some men who wouldn't generally be able to get jobs or were struggling. So that is still part of our program. But then we had to completely diversify and make sure that we were in control of all the standards. We started speaking to the Kenyan government, Kenyan Bureau of Standards to say, there are no minimum standards for reusable products. So we formed a committee, eventually a few years down the line we actually had some standards and so now it's a different program.",
    "end": 482.0
  },
  {
    "start": 482.0,
    "text": "Patrick Hypscher: OK, and as you mentioned a few years down the line, when did you start documenting it? So just to get an idea of the time span.",
    "end": 491.0
  },
  {
    "start": 491.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: So when this idea started was in 2018 actually. That's when you know things were happening and... ⁓ I guess when I said, okay, I need to do something was 2018. I didn't quite formalize until 2021 though, because I was just trying to see what works, what doesn't work. And then everything was different. In Kenya, all the laws are different. Even opening a company is a process. So I had to learn a lot about all that.",
    "end": 520.0
  },
  {
    "start": 520.0,
    "text": "Patrick Hypscher: OK, yeah. And how does the process look like How are you doing the pads right now?",
    "end": 528.0
  },
  {
    "start": 528.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: So right now we're still transitioning, what has been successful is we basically work with three pillars. We say we manufacture reusable parts, but that is actually not our main gig. So with the three pillars are education, empowerment, and the environment. So by education, which is really what has been helping us be successful and moving. So we run programs. within schools, is basically we have workshops for boys and girls. We make sure that boys definitely, definitely attend our workshops, you know, to create this awareness, but more importantly, to de-stigmatize and to make sure there's peer-to-peer conversations, which are healthy, et cetera. Then we have other workshops within communities for women and men. So this could be, for example, pastoralist communities who really don't talk about this and maybe even need some kind of information. So we work with them. Then we also have a program called MHM in the workplace where we would be able to go into factory setting and speak to the admin and say, okay, let's look at these wash facilities. Basically the idea is to increase the efficiency of the women labor. And many textile companies, for example, are predominantly single women who are employed there. So how can we help the company? and how can we help the women? And then recently we've launched something called MHH clubs in schools. basically 15 kids from a school would get together and have a weekly club. And the idea is for them to be able to obviously be informed. We train them through this, but also give peer-to-peer assistance to each other. make sure there's no teasing, make sure if there's any girl who would maybe have a quote unquote irregular period, where would they get help or same thing in the community. So those are our education programs. then further than that, if we have a long-term partner, for example, we would train their people on the ground. making sure that this is more sustainable, long lasting. So it's not just us coming in once, giving the education and then leaving. the idea is to give people on the ground accurate information which they can deliver in their own cultural context. So long wind and dancer, but that's the education part. Then we have the empowerment part, which is, ⁓ I was telling you earlier, we train and employ men and women, mainly women who may be... quote unquote marginalized. So for example, we have a small factory in the prison or for ex-prisoners or for teen moms. That has recently changed. You you're asking me, what does the program look like since January? We've changed it slightly. So we still have that. But because we had to scale up, we have another industrial manufacturing, which gives us the capacity. And then finally, we have the environment part where we have this full vertical, we work very closely with the textile companies who actually donate the cotton seeds. So hundreds of women employed in the farms here in Kenya, by the time the cotton is harvested into our products, it's just six weeks. We are trying to work with circular economy here, you know, guided by UNICEF Environment Hub to make sure that we are circular as a company, but also helping the textile industries here. to become as circular as possible. So for example, we use their waste, which was otherwise alternatively steamed because they just, that's what they did. So we use their waste and, you know, for example, one of the companies here has become fully solar powered And then our product is also...",
    "end": 729.0
  },
  {
    "start": 729.0,
    "text": "Patrick Hypscher: Mm-hmm.",
    "end": 741.0
  },
  {
    "start": 741.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: reusable. It can last at least five years. Mine have lasted seven and a half years. It is natural. It's breathable and all these things. we found through, you know, through my walk in that a lot of plastic pollution actually it's not it's not small. Plastic pollution because of disposable products is huge. You know, for example, if the girls do have a disposable pad where they're going to dispose of it, it's probably down the pit latrine, which clogs up the school toilets. or in Kibera they actually call flying pads, know, there's no waste collection. So when somebody is using a disposable pad, she just throws it overhead, you know, it's either taken over by a dog or it lands up into the water, you know, things like that. So I mean, obviously when I started this was just, okay, girls need to go to school, we need to find a solution.",
    "end": 771.0
  },
  {
    "start": 771.0,
    "text": "Patrick Hypscher: and that's",
    "end": 786.0
  },
  {
    "start": 786.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: But through our program, we really have found that the plastic pollution is also very huge.",
    "end": 790.0
  },
  {
    "start": 790.0,
    "text": "Patrick Hypscher: Your journey is amazing. mean, you started with documenting one specific issue you kind of came across and seeing the scale and variety of activities you're doing. This is really breathtaking.",
    "end": 802.0
  },
  {
    "start": 802.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: Yeah, the other thing we found that I mean through also this that if you go into prison in Kenya and even if you've served your time, whether it's five years or more or less, whenever you do come out, you will still not have a certificate of good standing, which means you're probably very unlikely to get a formal job anyway. So the rate of recidivism in Kenya is really, really high. And so what we are trying to do and we've learnt we've learnt a little bit here is what we're trying to do is try and employ these women. when we first did that, you know, we really thought, OK, this is how it's going to work. This is how it's going to be. This is what our capacity is going to be per month. But we didn't factor in the emotional and mental trauma, which we may have to deal with. So that was a whole new learning. So it's not as simple as it and it would as we would have, you know, naively expected.",
    "end": 853.0
  },
  {
    "start": 853.0,
    "text": "Patrick Hypscher: And to grasp a bit the magnitude, can you give us some numbers, be it like number of pets, number of trainings, people you've came in contact with?",
    "end": 862.0
  },
  {
    "start": 862.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: Yeah, I mean, it's forever changing. Basically, at the end of last month, was 93,000 something, which are immediate beneficiaries of pads, pad kits, actually. That amounts to about 800,000 pads. But like I told you, part of our program, actually equal part of our program is also speaking to the boys. So overall, 150,000. beneficiaries through this. That does not include the women we employ. That does not include the advocates we have on the ground. That does not include, you know, for example, whoever is part of our chain. However, we have translated this into the amount of days in schools which are saved, you how many girls are actually going to school, how many girls are actually not missing their exams. because Patrick, were, know, about a couple of years ago, I was in Lamu doing the same, which is actually where we started. So I have a soft spot for that place. But some girls were missing. So KCPE exams are, how can I say, to, I don't know, anyway, they're equivalent, a primary, for them to be able to go to secondary school as a primary, they need to those. Some girls were actually missing those.",
    "end": 914.0
  },
  {
    "start": 914.0,
    "text": "Patrick Hypscher: Mm-hmm.",
    "end": 936.0
  },
  {
    "start": 936.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: exams just because they were on the period, just because they couldn't go. And that was so heartbreaking because actually they don't get another chance. I mean, there's no parent in that situation that is going to say, OK, try again next year. So when we gave out those pads, just we followed up, we followed up three months and then we followed up a year after and no girl missed any exams. And it's just so beautiful just to even understand that. It's actually such a simple thing. So not attending school, you know, already we work a lot in rural areas actually. already, for example, pastoralist communities, already if you're a girl who's going to school, it's a privilege. And if you're going to secondary school, it really is a privilege and I understand it. But then if she has been given that chance and she has to then forgo it just because of a menstrual product, That is just so shameful. It's just so unfair. So we really try and work in those areas as much as we can. In fact, we have a great partner in Samburu, for example, where they drill well. So obviously there's water, the communities around there, and it's just so beneficial. you know, going to school, being able to go to school is a huge thing. And then we also have ⁓ statistics on carbon. emissions So for example, to make a disposable pad, there's an X amount of carbon pollution which goes in there. So by using our pads, how much are we saving? Also, how much plastic pollution is being avoided from the landfills in Kenya? Because frankly, even if you take 65 % who cannot afford pads? That amount is huge. We have in millions basically. And frankly, that's been our winner. education is one thing, but really plastic pollution has been a winner.",
    "end": 1040.0
  },
  {
    "start": 1040.0,
    "text": "Patrick Hypscher: No. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's again amazing to see how connected and intertwined your activities are. What does your funding or financial model look like?",
    "end": 1052.0
  },
  {
    "start": 1052.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: Okay, so our financial model sometimes is a little bit complicated, Our main model is a B2B, so business to business model. Which means the end beneficiary, whether it's a woman or a girl or a boy in the ground, would not need to pay, but somebody somewhere has to pay. So for example, our partners would be corporates or other NGOs or the government or individuals or angel donors, et cetera. So it's not really a charity, But our main aim is basically a social enterprise. our aim for the business is to make the social impact, environmental impact, and then the profits go back into our business. So that's the main thing. We do have a very, very small arm on retail, is the reason why it's small is because we just don't have the capacity to expand. We also are in the process of diversifying, so not just making pads, we are trying to work with nursing pads, which are reusable, makeup remover pads and period panties. Everything takes a lot more energy than we first anticipate, so it takes a lot longer. Our team is very small, but it's fierce. So yeah, it's taking us longer than we envisaged. So we did get a grant, which gave us quite a big boost by Bayer Foundation a couple of years ago. So aside of the grant, we got a lot of recognition and then people started saying, okay, these guys are onto something here, so let's give them more attention. So that's how we've been surviving.",
    "end": 1136.0
  },
  {
    "start": 1136.0,
    "text": "Patrick Hypscher: Okay. Can you give one or two examples of ⁓ B2B companies? How that looks like program if they were to start with you?",
    "end": 1145.0
  },
  {
    "start": 1145.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: Yeah, so for example, have a partner in Samburu. I mean, they are based in the US, the Samburu project. What they did was, you know, when they drill the wells, they suddenly see that, this community that's growing around the wells, what's in the school growing, that's actually the first thing that happens, the school grows before anything, before even... ⁓ a health center, a school grows there. Once the school grows, they find out, okay, now these girls need this and they need this. Hence, we come in, we give them the education, we give them products, we follow up with them, et cetera, et cetera, et So that's a whole, quite an old relationship we've had. What else? Oh, I'll tell you something really nice about them actually. So when I first started working in Samburu, which was maybe about five years ago, We actually, was during COVID, I said, okay, everything is shut in Kenya. Schools are not shut, business has to shut. Then I moved up country and I started getting SOS calls from people in Samburu and actually other places saying that, you know, there is just so much teen pregnancies now because literally the parents have lost their jobs. The girls are going into transactional sex and it is really rife. You need to do something. They need menstrual products. So we started working there again. We actually went there the first time with Eliud Kipchoge, who's a very well-known celebrity, he's an athlete. And so he came to speak to the girls saying, this is the right thing to do, continue education, et cetera. And that was really good. And at that time, the girls and the communities, the boys, they were very shy, very, very shy. And since then, every year for Menstrual Health Day, which is on 28th of May, we've been having big events there. because of Samburu Project organizing them. And the last one, which is this year, the boys actually made a song on Red, called Red, and they were really amazing. You know, they were empowered. There was girls who were having poetry about their menstrual health and how it's a great thing. just so, like the whole, there's a whole change. There's a whole wave of good change there. So anyway, I digress. So those are the kind of partners we work with. Other partners include local conservancy. So those who own lodges, know, big chains who own lodges in conservancies in Kenya, they basically have a corporate social responsibility to make sure that their communities are well served. So we work with them very closely. And yeah, it's been very powerful because the communities really feel heard. It's been beneficial. always take a survey after two to six months on schools and the women and men to see how they're getting on.",
    "end": 1297.0
  },
  {
    "start": 1297.0,
    "text": "Patrick Hypscher: And are there also like companies, international companies with Kenyan operations that reach out and fund one of your operations or one of your programs?",
    "end": 1306.0
  },
  {
    "start": 1306.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: Yeah, it's very much mixed. So these are Kenyan, the ones I'm talking about, they're lodges, they're Kenyan. Then there are, for example, mean, the textile companies in Kenya are very supportive of what we do because it's a win-win on both sides. And there could be other companies. Frankly, Patrick, there's always a mix because there are, for example, there are many industries in Kenya. So there's a paint industry which...",
    "end": 1310.0
  },
  {
    "start": 1310.0,
    "text": "Patrick Hypscher: Mm-hmm.",
    "end": 1328.0
  },
  {
    "start": 1328.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: which helps us or which says, we actually already work in this area. Would you mind bringing your pads, things like that? Yeah. So it's very much a mix. And in fact, our partners are also in the UK, America. And yeah, we have friends everywhere really.",
    "end": 1337.0
  },
  {
    "start": 1337.0,
    "text": "Patrick Hypscher: Mm-hmm. Okay, talking about partners everywhere. So what kind of partners are you looking for?",
    "end": 1348.0
  },
  {
    "start": 1348.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: I think this is a mix again. We would look for partners who work with circular economy, already fund projects which are circular. For example, if we say we have 1.57 tons of CO2 emissions avoided, what would that mean to a partner? Or we have 72 million disposable pads which are not going to the landfill anymore. What does that really mean to a partner and how can we transfer that into a monetary value or into say a grant or help us evaluate also, you what does this really mean? In terms of NGOs who work with women and girls and keeping girls in education, know, gender equity, you know, if we say 3.5 million girls have actually continued to go to school now, what does that mean and how can they support us to say, okay, what does it really require for this girl to go to school, what is the budget, etc. So those are the kind of partners we would look for. And those are actually our current statistics is what I've just said. So that's one thing. We would also always be very grateful for people who actually could help us scale up, so all this, like I said, we're trying to franchise right now. So we realize that this is basically a global problem. problem. You know, I'm on the roundtable for the Welsh government on the same thing. And we also very much realize that we can't do this on our own. mean, there's even if we had to Patrick, you know, we get we get inquiries from different parts of Africa all the time. So even if we have to send our product over to Uganda, it just does not make ⁓ sense. Sadly, just the taxes more than the product. So it doubles the cost of the goods. It does not make sense. So we have realized this and we would like to franchise this. And it just makes more sense for people to be able to do it in their own cultural context. What may work for us may be slightly different, maybe in Rwanda. So we professional help to help us franchise, to help us scale, to help... us make sure that there is a bigger market that we are tapping into in an accurate fashion. yeah, so aside of monetary and partners in the pads itself, there's just a bigger, bigger picture here. And the reason why we've come up with this, mean, we've been talking about this for over a year now. Because so earlier this year, I was in the World Economic Forum in Davos and there was a forum on menstrual health and then the the lady was like, okay, next year, what do we want to hear? You know, what do we want to talk about with regards to period poverty and menstrual health? I stood up and said, I really don't want to hear anymore. I mean, this this conversation we're in 2025. Really, if there are people on the ground with solutions, we just need to finance those and get them going. mean, I'm not saying I have the only solution, but I am very confident that I have a solution here in my context. So I'm willing to give, you know, things like getting the CEP certification or getting the IP for the product. That is all a lot of sweat. But if I could give that information to somebody who's really trying, that just makes so much more sense. could just cruise through this.",
    "end": 1531.0
  },
  {
    "start": 1531.0,
    "text": "Patrick Hypscher: Mm-hmm.",
    "end": 1536.0
  },
  {
    "start": 1536.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: Yeah.",
    "end": 1536.0
  },
  {
    "start": 1536.0,
    "text": "Patrick Hypscher: Yeah, wonderful. Madhvi thanks for telling your story. Thanks for the work you're doing and everyone listening right now, please think about how you can support and contribute to that this topic won't be on the agenda anymore soon. Thanks for your time, Madhvi.",
    "end": 1551.0
  },
  {
    "start": 1551.0,
    "text": "Madhvi Dalal: Thank you so much Patrick. Thank you for the platform. I appreciate it.",
    "end": 1611.128
  }
]