Inspiration
A safe space for mensural health and hygiene. Although menstruation is a natural process, it is barely talked about in society as it is considered taboo. Small actions like wrapping a packet of sanitary napkins in a paper tell us the society’s narrow and dilapidated mindset towards periods. It has now become a norm to talk in hushed voices and making use of slang while talking about this.
Millions of people go through this process, being completely unaware of what is going on in their bodies. There are so many myths around this topic that accepting these as facts is not far fetched from reality. People who go through this cycle every month are ignorant about this let alone the people who don’t. Due to this everyone has started believing that this natural process is somehow revolting and impure.
Many women face discrimination, harassment, and are looked down upon because of menstruation, as it is seen as a form of weakness rather than a necessary biological function. We've also seen various people around us suffering from many infections due to inadequate attention to menstrual hygiene.
This lack of information can often lead to disorders and diseases, if not managed. We have seen people around us not knowing about simple menstrual hygiene. Due to this, disorders like PCOD, PCOS have become very common. Menstruation is still not a gender-neutral discussion and not a lot of queer spaces are available to discuss the same. To make the world more aware and inclusive, menstrual health and awareness are highly important.
Hence, we decided to build a safe space for exploring, discussing, spreading awareness, bursting myths and so much more! As education is the most effective tool in preventing the spread of misinformation, our product also aims to guide people in the right direction with the right information.
What it does
Our platform is a one stop solution and a safe place for discussing things openly in a world where such things are often considered a taboo. A safe space to come together and interact with various other people, openly discuss their ideas and even pen thein thoughts down for the world to read, get to interact with doctors ,finding the right solutions, shopping for the right products (stare-free), share their art openly and much more from the comfort of your home!
How we built it
During our ideation, we looked at various issues and problems people were facing due to the general taboo. this was followed a rigorous research into the domain more about the awareness, information and misinformation, diseases, openness, existing applications, various solutions and much more! This was followed by a brainstorming session, where we penned down all the important features we should be implementing keeping the research in mind. Moving on to the development phase we started building our project, and OvaryAct was born!
On our application we've three roles: User, gynecologist , and NGO. People can register according to the specific functions as given and get access to various features! We also have a news and blogs page where users can read more about recent developments and information. Appointments with Doctors can also be scheduled through the application. Moreover, they share their query with the doctors through the platform. Users can interact with other users over the platform using the forum feature and share their ideas under various threads! We also have a arts page where people can share their arts with just everyone!
Challenges we ran into
We'd a lot of features down our list, and implementing them in due time was a real challenge for us! Managing our time the right way helped us a lot in successfully building the product. Moreover we also had to ensure the application was responsive and consistently designed each page. These challenges and obstacles came out to be the best learning experiences for us!
Accomplishments that we're proud of
One thing in particular we'd thought of implementing is a safe space for all. Generally when mentioning menstrual health, it's envisioned that the discussion only caters to women. Our product is a gender neutral platform, everything from the product to our UI, everything is gender-neutral.
What we learned
While researching for the project, we came across some amazing facts like : on average, your heart rate increases two beats per minute during your fertile days right before your monthly period. apart from that, these two days were filled with tons and tons of fun learning and hacking!
What's next for OvaryAct
Build it further! It's just periods, don’t Over-react, let's OvaryAct!!!!
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