The program started to convince girls that menstruation wasn’t embarrassing enough to miss school. It grew. Then they started speaking up. Writing poetry about rape. And accusing the teachers. Cynthia Vukets reports.

Laura Fitch, the Review’s Senior Editor for China, as part of an ongoing project, has interviewed and photographed women in a series that examines the lives of a few women building a life in the capital of the world’s next superpower.