Myna Mahila Foundation: Empowering Women’s Health Agency through Generative AI
Myna Mahila Foundation is dismantling the wall of silence around sexual and reproductive health (SRH) by providing urban poor women with "Myna Bolo"—a confidential, medically accurate, and culturally sensitive AI companion.
Watch the story in 60 seconds (AI-generated video; visuals are illustrative)
Case at a Glance
Myna Mahila Foundation is a grassroots-led organisation dedicated to empowering women in urban poor communities. With a workforce comprising 75% women from the communities served, the foundation bridges the gap between healthcare needs and access through a bottom-up, trust-based approach.
Over 35 million women in Indian urban slums face acute barriers to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care. High costs, long wait times, and a 74% shortage of specialists create a vacuum often filled by harmful misinformation and cultural taboos, leaving women with restricted agency over their own bodies.
‘Myna Bolo’ is a multilingual, AI-powered WhatsApp chatbot that provides confidential, non-judgmental guidance on SRH. Utilising a multi-agent RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) architecture, it offers medically vetted responses, local dialect support (Hindi, Hinglish, Marathi, Minglish, Telugu and English), and anonymous human-in-the-loop escalations.
In India’s urban slums, healthcare is often a privilege rather than a right, especially for young women. Approximately 45% of pregnancies in India are unintended, and 80% of young women report an inability to discuss SRH issues with providers due to deep-seated cultural stigmas. Millions of women avoid hospitals for fear of judgment and a lack of empathetic care.
The core challenge is systemic: misinformation amplified through social media forwards often dictates critical health choices. Furthermore, the structural deficit of nearly three-quarters of required OB-GYNs in community health centres means that even when a woman seeks help, the system is often unable to provide it. The need was for a solution that was not only accessible but also radically private and culturally localised.
Myna Mahila developed ‘Myna Bolo’ as a first-stop support system that mirrors the fearless nature of the Myna bird, encouraging women to speak freely.
Technical Architecture & Features:
- Multi-Node AI System: Built on OpenAI APIs, the chatbot uses a multi-agent structure to handle specific tasks: translation, intent detection, and contextual response generation. This ensures the bot understands not just the words, but the "hidden meanings" and metaphors common in local dialects.
- Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG): To ensure 100% medical reliability, the AI draws from a proprietary knowledge base authored by Myna Mahila’s doctors, preventing the ‘hallucinations’ common in generic LLMs.
- Multimodal Accessibility: Integrating Sarvam.ai, the platform supports speech-to-text and text-to-speech, allowing semi-literate users to interact via voice notes, a critical feature for inclusivity in urban poor settings.
- Anonymity & Human-in-the-Loop: For complex medical queries, users can escalate to a live agent. Using call-masking technology (Exotel/Twilio), both the user and the agent remain anonymous, preserving the ‘safe space’ environment.
The deployment of Myna Bolo has proven that AI can be a vehicle for empathy and systemic health transformation.
Technology Stack
| Name of Tool | Where it was used | What it enabled | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAI APIs | Backend / LLM | Core intent detection and empathetic response generation | Commercial |
| Sarvam.ai | Interaction Layer | High-quality audio support (Speech-to-Text / Text-to-Speech) | Commercial |
| Turn.io | Communication | Secure WhatsApp Business API integration | Commercial |
| n8n | Development | Workflow automation and backend orchestration | Open-source |
| ElasticSearch | Search Engine | Efficient retrieval of localized, doctor-vetted content | Open-source |
| Exotel / Twilio | Security | Call-masking for anonymous telehealth escalations | Commercial |
Key Project Learnings
Trust is built through language; using ‘Rani Workers’ (community leaders) to train the AI on local metaphors and slang ensured a 92% comprehension rate of user queries.
In health-tech, generic LLM responses are a risk; a ‘Human-vetted Knowledge Base’ (RAG) is essential to ensure every response is medically accurate and socially relevant.
Anonymity (via call masking and non-judgmental AI) is the primary driver for women to ask sensitive questions they would never ask a physical doctor.
Potential for Wider Adoption
| Sector | Adaptability of the Solution |
| Government (Public Health) | High. The Kuppam pilot demonstrates how Myna Bolo can be integrated into district-level healthcare systems to reduce the burden on Community Health Centres. |
| NGOs (Gender & Rights) | High. Organisations working on domestic violence or sensitive rights issues can adopt the anonymous ‘human-in-the-loop’ framework. |
| Global South Ecosystems | High. The modular architecture (n8n + OpenAI) allows for rapid adaptation to other regional languages and cultural contexts (e.g., Sub-Saharan Africa). |
See it in Action
This film highlights how Myna Mahila uses digital chatbots to provide women with a private, judgment-free platform for reproductive health guidance, period tracking, and professional medical support.
Learn how the Myna Bolo WhatsApp chatbot interface demonstrates how users receive medically-validated health advice and book free tele-consultations with doctors directly through the chat.
Listen to a beneficiary explain how the Myna Bolo chatbot provides a safe, private space to ask sensitive health questions and offers immediate, reliable answers that help women overcome hesitation and manage their reproductive health with confidence.