Teen Activist Tackles Period Stigma and Menstrual Health in India

Photo: Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition (Unsplash)

Aadvik Jain, among the latest winners of the prestigious Diana Award for young people, was just a kid when he broke his little toe on the edge of his bed. His father, whose office was two hours away, dropped everything to come home and take him to the emergency room. To Jain, that response felt normal, he told NPR. It wasn’t until years later, after watching a close friend suffer through severe menstrual pain that the adults in her life brushed off, that he began to wonder why one kind of pain earned a drop-everything trip to the ER while the other was met with silence.

Three years ago, when Jain and his friend were 10th graders in Delhi, he noticed her break into tears during midterm exams while suffering from period cramps. He helped her get to the school office, where she was given a painkiller and sent home. But the next day, she returned with the same pain, telling Jain that despite having the same experience for several months, her parents had assumed that she was trying to fake her way out of testing. Cultural norms only compounded her struggle: periods are rarely discussed openly in Indian families, especially around men. Jain told his own mother, who asked their teacher to call the girl’s parents and urge them to take her to a doctor. She was ultimately diagnosed with the hormonal disorder known as polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome and later evaluated for endometriosis, which can cause excruciating periods. Since then, treatment and lifestyle changes have reduced her pain a great deal.

The outcome made Jain even more curious about the gendered difference, he said. Considering the response to his broken toe, he wondered: “What if a girl could simply tell her father, “Dad, I’m having really bad cramps, and I can’t go to school today,” and he would say, “Okay, let me get you a heating pad”? But with menstruation being treated as taboo, especially around men, that is often impossible. Worse yet, sometimes, even women “aren’t able to support other women in the way they deserve,” he said.

In 2024, Jain and three classmates, two boys and two girls, formed Team Period for a school competition in which teams of students spend months working on a social cause. When the competition ended, they kept going. Since then, the quartet has provided workshops to Delhi schools, orphanages and low-income neighborhoods, installed a sanitary pad dispenser at their school and surveyed about 4,000 students, parents and community members. Team Period has made a huge difference.

For example, one 12-year-old who persistently disrupted a period workshop because he couldn’t understand the value of attending told Jain that his 9-year-old sister had gotten her first period while the two of them were home alone. She didn’t know what was happening and became very scared, crying and screaming for help in the bathroom. Thanks to the workshop, he was able to help — providing not only the pads needed to protect her clothing but also delivering chocolates and constructing a makeshift heating pad for her comfort.

Now 18, Jain says that although the Diana Award includes no money, the publicity will help his group secure more sponsors and expand their work to other cities. In addition, he’ll begin studying medicine and public health at Italy’s University of Bologna in February.