Did You Know? A Menstrual Hygiene Initiative Helped Manushi Chhillar Win The Miss World 2017 Crown

"Menstruation is a natural process and sanitary pads are a necessity, not a luxury." This is a belief Manushi Chhillar has held onto firmly ever since she first stepped onto the global pageant stage, and it has shaped one of the most meaningful missions of her public life. Long before she was Miss World, and long after she stopped being expected to simply pose for cameras and smile, Chhillar chose to build something lasting: an initiative called Project Shakti, aimed at spreading maximum awareness about menstrual hygiene across communities that had never openly discussed it. When the then 20-year-old Manushi was crowned Miss World 2017, the world assumed she would do what most newly crowned queens do — sit back, enjoy the title, and let the crown do the talking. Instead, she did the opposite. She decided the crown was only useful if it could be put to work.

After winning the Miss World title, Manushi didn't slow down; if anything, she accelerated. She set out to lead the Beauty with a Purpose tour, using it as a platform for her Feminine Hygiene Awareness Campaign rather than a victory lap. This wasn't a cause she adopted for optics or because it fit neatly into a pageant script — it was a cause close to her heart long before the crown arrived. At the Miss World contest itself, Manushi presented a social project built entirely around menstrual hygiene awareness, laying out both the scale of the problem in India and the concrete steps she had already taken to address it. That presentation, backed by real fieldwork rather than rehearsed talking points, is widely credited as one of the deciding factors that ultimately won her the title.

Chhillar's Project Shakti was, in many ways, the fundamental facet that helped her clinch the Miss World crown, because it did more than check a box for social responsibility — it embodied the pageant's own stated philosophy. She promoted menstrual hygiene education and personally visited numerous villages to educate women and adolescent girls about sanitary health, breaking a silence that had persisted in many of those communities for generations. Her approach aligned almost perfectly with the Miss World motto, "Beauty with a Purpose," which asks contestants to use their platform for tangible social impact rather than symbolic gestures. It's that alignment — a real project meeting a real mission statement — that made her candidacy stand out among a field of equally accomplished women.

Her meaningful, sustained work and the seriousness of her reign as titleholder earned her special recognition from Miss World CEO Julia Morley during her final walk on the Miss World stage, a rare and pointed acknowledgment. With that recognition, Manushi Chhillar became the first woman in the history of the pageant to win both the Miss World crown and the Beauty with a Purpose title in the very same year, a distinction that still sets her apart from every titleholder who came before or after her.

"It is a project with an aim. Shakti means 'Power.' Through my project, I want to empower each and every woman," she said, describing the philosophy behind the initiative in terms that were less about charity and more about restoring agency to women who had long been denied basic information about their own bodies. She noted, while discussing her early work, that her team had already covered more than 20 villages across India by that point — a number that reflected not a one-time awareness drive, but an ongoing, boots-on-the-ground campaign. In addition to spreading awareness about menstrual hygiene through direct conversation and community sessions, Project Shakti also focused heavily on the distribution of low-cost sanitary napkins, addressing the very real affordability barrier that keeps many women from accessing basic menstrual products in the first place. Beyond distribution, the initiative went a step further by creating employment opportunities, encouraging local women to join sanitary pad manufacturing units in their own areas — turning what could have been a purely charitable gesture into a small but meaningful economic engine for the women involved.

Starting out in India, Manushi Chhillar's thoughtful initiative did not stay confined to the country of its origin. After she won both the Miss World 2017 title and the Beauty with a Purpose Award, the project expanded on a global level, reaching women and girls across continents with no-cost menstrual products and education. What had begun as village-level outreach in India grew into a wider effort to normalise conversations around menstruation in places where the same silence and stigma existed, proving that the model she built at home — a mix of education, access, and economic opportunity — could travel well beyond India's borders and speak to a universal, largely unaddressed need.

What stands out most throughout Manushi Chhillar's journey is not simply that she won a global pageant, but how thoroughly she and her mission worked to shatter the barriers surrounding menstrual health — barriers built on silence, shame, and a lack of access that many people never have to think twice about. She didn't treat the Miss World crown as a finish line; she treated it as a louder microphone. From village visits long before the cameras arrived, to a global platform after she took the stage, to a project that continued to grow well beyond her reign, Manushi consistently proved that she made the most of her title to create measurable, real-world impact rather than a fleeting moment of visibility. Nearly a decade on from that win, Project Shakti's legacy is less about the crown she wore for a year and more about the thousands of women whose access to sanitary products, information, and even income improved because of it — a reminder that "Beauty with a Purpose" was never just a pageant tagline for her, but a mission statement she has continued to live by.