Birds of a Feather
College project turned international foundation, an Indian organization is inspiring women to shift the conversation around women’s healthcare by finding their voice.
Suhani Jalota ’16 was eight years old when she visited her father who was studying at Duke. She was attending basketball games and cheering “go Duke”, not knowing this would be the place she kickstarted an internationally recognized organization.
In a decade, she found herself at Duke again, an international student with a passion for improving women’s health in India. Supported by mentors at Duke’s Melissa and Doug Entrepreneurs (Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship), Jalota mobilized that passion into Myna Mahila. ‘Myna’ refers to a chatty bird and ‘mahila’ means woman in Hindi, centering their mission towards instilling empowerment, reproductive health and providing resources to higher standards of living to Indian women. All of this begins with a conversation.
Myna Mahila stands on three pillars: Myna health, employment and research. All are integrated and after the same mission: give women the agency to make their own decisions. Through segmenting these three themes, Jalota provides insight into how their foundation empowers women to create change for the future.
Myna health:
Q: What is the biggest issue when it comes to women’s health that Myna has discovered?
Jalota: “So for women, I would say sexual and reproductive health topics holds a lot of taboo, especially infertility. In India, there is a lot of historical and present patriarchal ideals, so they don’t know who to talk to. Even in family planning they don’t have control, that is decided by the husband or mother-in-law.”
Q: How does the organization go about shifting those integrated stigmas?
Jalota: “We’re leading with interventions. We bring people in her social circles, including the men, to go knocking on other husband’s doors about things their wives go through. At the field and local level, it’s been transformative for communities, still it’s not a scalable solution.”
Myna employ:
Q: What does empowerment mean at Myna, what does it look like?
Jalota: “Women controlling their own finances and standing on their own two feet is empowerment. If she doesn’t like her marriage or how the household is run, she can say something. But she can only do that if she has her own bank account.”
Q: How does Myna create opportunities for employment?
Jalota: “We are changing employment practices. There is also stigma against women who are seen working because it signals that the man can’t provide. We’re meeting them halfway; we can provide a remote job at home where she’s actually earning an income and contributing to her bank account.”
Myna research:
Q: How does Myna research these large issues while providing effective solutions?
Jalota: “We aren’t outsiders, our research is really from the women in the local communities. We also never discount what they believe, we just tell a different story. We let them question and have their own agency to realize they don’t have answers to those questions and the chain effect starts.”
Q: How would you describe how these three pillars overlap?
Jalota: “It’s all connected. We can create links to help women gain knowledge about reproductive health which also can lead to more jobs. We’re trying to understand the most cost-effective and scalable solution that can change their life through their own power.”
Q: What do you hope Myna Mahila will accomplish in 10-15 years?
Jalota: "We want to increase women’s agency and confidence across 15 different communities in Mumbai. Longer term, we hope to start a chain effect with other groups to increase jobs by 20-25% to boost India’s GDP and create a massive transformation for women’s rights."
“We want to have as many chatty birds as possible, this is truly a team effort and there is real change happening.”
How you can get involved:
Myna Mahila is also on the lookout for fellow Blue Devils to join their leadership team in Mumbai, India. Arya Patel '22 is a point of contact for any undergrads or graduates who would be interested in joining the foundation. Email aryapatel@mynafoundation.com for more information.
