California Nonprofit Helps Menstruating Girls in India

Opens Center to Sew Menstrual Kits

LIVERMORE, CA, UNITED STATES, May 28, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Global Uplift Project (TGUP) just opened a sewing center in the Indian state of Andrah Pradesh. The center will produce its Save a Girl™ (SaG) sanitary kits. SaG kits help adolescent girls manage their period so they can stay in school.

According to Brenda Birrell, inventor of Save a Girl™, “Girls dropping out of school because they cannot manage their period is the greatest preventable human tragedy in the world.”

UNICEF estimates that more than 20 million girls drop out of school every year because they cannot manage their period. The number might be as high as 50 million.

The California-based nonprofit operates SaG sewing centers in five other countries: Kenya; Uganda; Tanzania; Cameroon; and Nepal. Those centers have made more than 107,000 Save a Girl™ kits. They have been distributed to girls in eleven developing world countries.

According the UNICEF, more than 20,000,000 girls drop out of school every year because they have no way to manage their period. The number might be as high as 50,000,000.

The Save a Girl ™ kit is an absorbent, washable, reusable sanitary pad that costs $7 to make. TGUP employs local seamstresses to manufacture the kits. A SaG kit typically lasts five to seven years, meaning they help girls stay in school for less than $2 per girl, per year.

Said TGUP’s Birrell, “Keeping a girl in school for $2 per year is one of the highest returns on human investment in the world. It is certainly one of the most humane.

World Bank research indicates that investing in young women produces a wide array of socially-beneficial outcomes.

Better educated girls defer sex longer, have fewer partners, marry later, have fewer children, make sure those children are better educated, have better vocational options, and contribute more to their communities. A better educated girl might be the most valuable thing a society can create.

TGUP believes keeping adolescent girls in school is the most direct, proven, and inexpensive way to improve the human condition.

“The full human potential of half of the human race is not, now, available: the female half,” said Birrell. “If all we did was keep girls in school, we would, in effect double the available human potential. That is possible, today.”

In addition to its work in menstrual management, TGUP builds educational infrastructure in developing world countries. It has completed more than 550 small-scale projects in 26 developing world countries. Over their duration, those projects will help 3.5 million of the world’s poorest people have a better chance in life.

Robert Freeman
The Global Uplift Project
+1 650-575-3434
email us here
Visit us on social media:
Instagram
Facebook
YouTube
X