Country of Residence
United States
Age
20
Project title
PADI FOR YOU
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
PADI FOR YOU runs mobile wellness booths that give underserved students free menstrual products, mental health resources, and financial literacy in one stop, and uses what we learn from community screenings in the United States, Nigeria, India, and Kenya to design low-cost, point-of-care health tests that tell women and the health workers who treat them what a result actually means, so that care reaches the people who have always been told to wait
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
https://www.instagram.com/padiforyou/
Project Category
My project is an existing project that I started
Project Stage
Growth (We’ve moved past the very first activities and are beginning to have consistent weekly or monthly impact)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
I grew up in Nigeria, where women’s bodies and women’s health were surrounded by shame and silence. I learned early what it costs when girls are told to stay quiet about pain, and I carried that with me long before I had any idea how to act on it. The spark came in November 2024. I launched a campaign on Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, expecting a few conversations. Instead, more than 2,200 women wrote to me about bacterial infections, PCOS, UTIs, and endometriosis. Many had never told anyone. Many were held back from care by cultural and religious barriers around invasive exams, and some had waited so long that antibiotics no longer worked for them. Reading those messages, I recognized my own fear in their silence. That was the moment something clicked. I stopped asking whether I was qualified to help and started asking why a solution did not already exist. These women did not need another awareness slogan. They needed products, a trusted place to ask questions, and tools that did not require them to explain themselves to anyone. Everything PADI FOR YOU does now starts from that idea: a girl should be able to walk up, get a product, a resource, and an honest conversation, and leave knowing a little more about her own body than when she arrived. Those 2,200 messages are the reason the program exists.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
Period poverty, silence around mental health, and low financial literacy hit the same students at the same time. A student who cannot afford pads misses class. A student who is told her pain is normal does not seek care. A student with no money skills inherits all of it. The need shows up in all three places our booths have run: the United States, Nigeria, and India. Women’s conditions such as UTIs, PCOS, and endometriosis are widely underdiagnosed. In the United States, about 40 percent of females aged 12 to 21 are iron deficient, yet few are screened. Many women reach care only after complications set in. It matters to me because I lived the silence. It matters to my community because the cost is quiet and compounding: missed school, untreated infections, and drug resistance that makes the next infection harder to treat. I saw the same gap from the clinic side in Narok County, Kenya. Some women walked 13 to 20 miles to reach our health event. Many tested positive for a UTI with no symptoms, and a positive test meant antibiotics costing 700 to 1,000 shillings, with no lab to confirm infection first. For women with little cash, a wrong guess is not a small mistake, and for the health workers making the call, there is nothing else to go on. The problem is not a lack of care. It is a lack of tools that fit the places where care actually happens.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
PADI FOR YOU runs mobile wellness booths at underserved schools and community events. Each booth offers three things in one stop: free menstrual products, mental health resources, and financial literacy materials. Trained volunteers staff the booth, and a student can walk up, take what she needs, and talk without judgment. We bring the booth to where students already are. We partner with organizations already trusted in each place, including Healthy Futures Sacramento, the PERIOD Equity Project, the Sacramento Financial Empowerment Center, My Sister’s Keeper, and Bridge Beyond Borders. In Nigeria we have distributed pads through local wellness initiatives, and our booths have reached students in the United States, Nigeria, and India. In August 2026 we extended the model to health screening in Narok County, Kenya, with Enkishon, a local organization working on girls’ education. I raised and spent $4,000 on three events where 430 women and girls sought care, and 64 were screened for urinary tract infection and anemia. I managed data recording and gave every woman a take-home copy of her results, so she had a record she had never had before. We also covered treatment costs on the nurse’s advice. Everything we learn feeds back into design. My sister venture, PADI, is developing a biodegradable banana-fiber pad with built-in biosensors, piloted with women who had UTIs. Our field data now shapes that work and a low-cost diagnostic for women, built around what community workers and patients say they need, so that the next version of the tool is designed with them and not just for them. Each booth and each screening day is therefore both a service to the people in front of us and a way of learning what the next tool must do.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
Our booths have reached more than 26,000 students across the United States, Nigeria, and India. We have distributed over 1,269 pads through wellness initiatives in Nigeria and the U.S. Our Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder campaign drew more than 2,200 women who shared their health stories. In August 2026, we ran three events in Narok County, Kenya, where 430 women and girls sought care. We screened 64 for urinary tract infection and anemia: 10 of 18 girls aged 13 to 15 and 23 of 46 women tested positive for a UTI, most with no symptoms. Every woman left with a copy of her results. The work has been recognized by the Diana Award, UNESCO, and Bloomberg, and supported by a Vital Voices Grassroots Voices Grant (I am also a 2026 Vital Voices Fellow) for our mobile booths in Sacramento and Los Angeles public high schools. The Narok screening also produced a research question, now developed with Prof. Elizabeth Bukusi at the Kenya Medical Research Institute, so a wellness event is becoming evidence Kenya’s health system can use. The numbers I care about most are quieter: students who asked a question out loud for the first time, and women who now know what their own results say. In the next year I want impact to mean not only more people reached, but better decisions made after they are reached.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
Most programs address one need at a time: a pad drive, a mental health talk, or a budgeting workshop. PADI FOR YOU puts menstrual care, mental health, and financial literacy at one booth, because students live with these problems together. The booth is mobile, so the program goes to students instead of waiting for them. What is new is what we do after the event. Most volunteer programs in places like Narok run a screening day and leave. We record every result, give each woman a copy, and study what happens next: what she was told, what treatment she received, what it cost, and whether it was needed. In the United States a positive strip rarely decides treatment alone, because samples are cultured first. In Narok there is no lab, so a positive dipstick in a woman with no symptoms led straight to antibiotics. The nurses were not at fault. The tool was the limit. That observation is now a research question, advised by Prof. Elizabeth Bukusi at the Kenya Medical Research Institute: what must a low-cost, point-of-care test measure before a positive result can be trusted alone? Our plan is to follow about 300 women, check back two weeks later, and compare our findings with Kenya’s own sub-county health records, while credentialed local health workers do all testing. The tool I am developing, a paper-based microfluidic test, is cheap, needs no power or lab, and can be read by color. The nonprofit is also a source of ground truth. The community program informs the technology, and the technology is designed with the people it is meant to serve, not just for them. That loop, from a booth to a design brief, is what separates this from a one-time event, and it is how a small nonprofit can contribute evidence, not only supplies, to a global health problem
How many people are on your team?
15
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
We have various teams based on the country, but since my focus is Kenya and US for this grant. In the US, I have UCLA students that volunteer (more than 30 students). In Kenya, Enkishon and CFK Africa's team and I collaborate, as I orchestrate the events, and they implement accroding to my guidance.
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
First, grow the booth program in Sacramento and Los Angeles public high schools, supported by our Vital Voices grant, and train student leaders to run booths without me. A program that depends on one person is not a program yet. Second, deepen our work in Narok County, Kenya, with Enkishon and CFK Africa. We will follow about 300 women through screening, record what treatment follows and what it costs, and check back two weeks later, using confidential numbers instead of names. I will compare our findings with Kenya’s own sub-county health records to see whether women like these are being counted. This work is advised by Prof. Elizabeth Bukusi at KEMRI, and all testing stays with credentialed local health workers. Third, turn that evidence into a design brief for a low-cost diagnostic that tells health workers what a positive result actually means, covering cost, speed, and which readings predict a confirmed result. Fourth, strengthen the foundation: more local partners, a clearer volunteer training guide, and a shared results record that any partner site can use. I want the program to keep running well if I step back, and I want every partner to leave an event knowing more than when it started. If this works, other organizations running health days can copy the same simple record and follow-up.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
I invite people in by giving them something specific to do. A student can staff a booth for one afternoon, translate materials, or lead a conversation about periods or mental health with her own peers. Booths work as an open door for people who want to help, and no one has to be an expert to start. Our Instagram, @padiforyou, shares what we learn so people can see the work and not just the mission, and local press, including ABC10, has covered our campus wellness work. Our Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder campaign drew more than 2,200 women who wrote in, which showed me that people join when someone finally says the quiet part out loud. We also invite partners. Healthy Futures Sacramento, the PERIOD Equity Project, Enkishon, CFK Africa, and others have worked with us, and each one has taught us something about what a place needs. In Kenya, we rely on local health workers to tell us what their neighbors will actually use and trust. I try to leave everyone we reach with one action: ask one question, share one resource, or start one booth where they are. More than 26,000 students have been reached so far, and 176 volunteers and 7 partner organizations have joined. In the coming year I want to hand every one of them a clear role, so that joining feels like taking ownership, not just helping once.
