Project 28 was founded by Soha Budhani to bridge the gap between academic public health frameworks and grassroots community trust. The inspiration for the initiative stems from her personal ties to Pakistan and East Africa, where her father spent his early childhood years, which later led her to volunteer in Northern Kenya. Witnessing firsthand the devastating physical and social toll of systemic health taboos, period poverty, and untreated obstetric fistulas across these regions, she resolved to build a scalable solution.
Soha brings years of dedicated research experience, peer-reviewed medical publication, and a lifelong commitment to advancing women's health equity. Project 28 represents the intersection of that rigorous scientific expertise and a profound mission of human kindness.
Project 28 does not send health information into communities from the outside. It trains people who are already trusted inside them. Health Advocates are recruited locally, trained on a core set of women's health material, and are then able to deliver that material in their own heritage language and regional dialect, in person, to people they already know.
The network grows the same way. Advocates train other advocates, often without being asked to, and those second-generation advocates go on to train more. This is why the reach figures are reported from the field rather than measured centrally. Our work happens where the advocates are, and they are the ones who count it.