Aditi Gupta is the founder of Menstupedia- an initiative to introduce and educate young girls about menstruation. She was awarded the Forbes 30 under 30 title and the BBC 100 Women.
Besides her phenomenal achievement, she has had a rather innovative approach to this issue. Through her initiative, she introduced comic books that educated young girls and even boys on this topic. The illustrations and cartoons make it really easy and comfortable for parents and teachers to talk about menstruation.
She has educated more than 50,000 girls and trained 10,000 educators. The comic is available in 20 languages and is being used around countries around the globe. She also is a TED speaker.
Her work initially received criticism for discussing a taboo subject, she, however, pushed through to open bright doors of support online. Her books are also used by several NGOs to spread awareness.
“A natural biological process that every girl and woman goes through, every month, for about half of her life”, says Aditi. She rightfully adds, “yet we consider it a taboo, we feel awkward and shameful talking about it”. This triggered Aditi in ways that made her devout her life to this issue in the society.
In her early days as a pre-teen, she was always told to not talk about her periods and that led to her being unaware of her own body. Today that teen has stepped up to make sure that other girls don’t go through the same.
Women like her truly bring pride to our country. She is bringing change and busting misconception by educating little girls and boys. Menstruation is a topic that needs to be normalised and talked about, not only in India but all around the globe, and Aditi is helping us do just that.
For more info:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themenstrualeducator/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aditiguptamenstrupedia/
Article By: Riya Shaharkar