Every girl should be in school

Directed by Akanksha Seda, through Offroad Films and created by Leo Burnett India, the film is set in an all-girls school where the students are getting their education on periods and puberty through a piece of red paper passed around by the students.

It is handed out in classrooms, corridors and bathrooms, eventually making it into an assembly where it is read out in front of the school.

The Missing Chapter illustrates the need for period education in Indian textbooks as part of Whisper’s flagship #KeepGirlsInSchool programme. The girls in the school depicted are only being taught about their own bodies through the other female students. 

Without the inclusion of menstrual health education in schools, girls who do not learn about it from their classmates may never get the proper education they deserve.

With a goal to include period education into school curriculums, the campaign aims to make a real difference on the ground: 

23 million girls drop out of school when their periods begin, and the pandemic has gone on to add another 10 million girls facing the loss of education due to lack of period education and menstrual hygiene.

71 per cent of adolescent girls in India are not aware that menstruation occurs until they begin their period.

Whisper, with its ads and programmes is working to continue to reduce these numbers having already educated over 54 million girls on puberty and menstrual hygiene and to remove the taboo of menstruation in India.