_edited.jpg)
Grassroots Rising
Bringing together grassroots leaders from menstrual justice movements around the world.
At the Women Deliver Conference in Narrm, Melbourne in April 2026, a room packed with activists, grassroots organisations, academics, INGO’s, donors, and policymakers came together to imagine the next phase of the global menstrual justice movement.
Grounded in our call to action at Women Deliver 2023 - ‘There can be no gender equality without menstrual justice’ - this session sought to radically disrupt the status quo.
At Irise, we dismantle menstrual injustice by channeling power and resources directly to young activists and grassroots leaders, sustaining them as powerful forces for systemic change, and advocating for others to do the same. We center those facing intersecting forms of oppression, ensuring menstrual justice is embedded within broader social justice movements. Bold in our ambition, we refuse to work within the existing system, modeling new paths for a more just and liberated future.
We convened this session because we believe in the transformative power of emerging, regional, global majority, grassroots and movement-led menstrual justice networks. In response to decades of intersectional, community-led action being overlooked, undervalued, and systematically underfunded by traditional development structures, these regional networks are pioneering creative, movement-led resourcing and grantmaking models that are fundamentally reshaping how our movement is sustained and grown.
Our goal was to amplify and platform their work, providing a vital space where they could learn from one another and collectively demand what we need from funders, policymakers, researchers, and larger INGO’s to ensure our voices are heard.
Grassroots Rising: Collective Action for Menstrual Justice brought together grassroots leaders from menstrual justice networks across the world.
Together, the panelists shared experiences, reflected on challenges and opportunities within the movement, and explored what is needed to build collective power for systemic change.
01. Refuse the language of shame
“We urgently need to move away from the language of 'hygiene' which implies impurity and uncleanliness related to menstruating bodies, further entrenching damaging stereotypes and social norms.” - Hira Amjad, Dastak Foundation
Language is not neutral; it shapes policy, dictates funding, and either reinforces or dismantles stigma. During the panel, speakers issued a clear, collective call to reframe terminology from ‘menstrual hygiene’, to more holistic and rights-based terminology of 'menstrual health and dignity' or 'menstrual justice'. This would better support holistic solutions and multi-sectoral solutions, as well as avoid the unintended connotation that menstruation is 'dirty'.
02. Intersectional Justice
Wambui Kimani from Zamara Foundation, part of The Period Equality Network (TPEN) reminded the room: “We cannot address menstrual justice from a surface level… the focus cannot be on products alone.”
True progress requires an in-depth exploration of the root causes and the structural inequities that dictate who gets left behind. Irise’s groundbreaking report, Scarlet Murmurations: Advancing Global Menstrual Justice, brought together hundreds of activists and grassroots leaders from around the world to collectively define a justice approach:
“Menstrual justice can be understood as a rights-based, intersectional approach that seeks to dismantle structural inequities related to menstruation and the menstrual cycle.”
Drawing heavily on feminist thought and reproductive justice frameworks, this approach broadens the focus from individual challenges to systemic inequalities. It seeks structural change by emphasising how intersecting systems of oppression - such as patriarchy, racism, sexism, capitalism and classism - further limit access to resources. Demanding intersectoral, community, and governmental collaboration, menstrual justice is a call for broad, systemic social change. Hira challenged the room to think about religious and cultural power dynamics:
“Who is controlling the knowledge in faith spaces? Who is being silenced in these conversations? When we shift that power, when we listen, trust, and work with communities, silence begins to break. The intersectional part of this work is the way forward. Leaving behind faith-based communities is not the answer.”
Intersectionality means breaking down the gendered boundaries that frame menstruation solely as a ‘women’s issue’. It requires recognising and actively including trans, non-binary, and gender diverse menstruators, whose experiences are too often excluded from both policy and programming spaces. This work requires us to build trust with communities in ways that can meaningfully shift social norms and create impact at a grassroots level — reaching spaces that traditional interventions fail to access with short term, technical solutions. As Nalini Singh described: “Menstrual justice is directly linked to gender equality… we need to get together in movements, no matter how small.”
Intersectional justice also requires intentionally identifying whose experiences have been overlooked, undervalued, or misunderstood. Nalini Singh shared how the Pacific Menstrual Health Network is actively working to expand the boundaries of the movement:
“As women's rights organisations, we know best. We’ve been doing it for decades. Putting a spotlight on things that should be in policies… If we want to get transformative change, we need to work together with others. The Pacific Menstrual Health Network has collaborated with the Pacific Disability Forum, putting the voice, perspective, and experience of people with disabilities at the center.”
03. Fund the movement
“If we want meaningful change we must shift power and resources towards grassroots movements because the communities closest to the challenge are the closest to the solution.” - Elizabeth, IIEA, TPEN
The narrower 'hygiene' lens of menstrual health and rights was led by WASH actors and played an important role to generate initial interest, momentum and practice towards improving menstrual health, primarily targeting adolescent girls and WASH improvements in schools. As menstrual health evidence has demonstrated a need for more holistic interventions, so too must investment, policy and practice be reorientated towards feminist movements.
Again and again, the room returned to the same message: menstrual justice movements are being held back not by a lack of ideas, leadership, or action - but by a lack of trust and investment which limits influence in global advocacy spaces and agendas. Grassroots organisations and movement leaders have spent years building community trust, testing approaches, responding to crises, and creating change with limited resources. The challenge is not whether movements know what works — it is whether funding systems are willing to back them.
The panel highlighted the need for long-term investment in menstrual justice networks to support collective action, strengthen organising, and enable shared learning across movements. As Wambui of Zamara Foundation urged: ‘We need to support this work beyond manufacturing of products. We need flexible and consistent funding.’
There were strong calls for funders to trust networks to distribute funds within their membership and beyond. Many of the networks in the room have already been piloting innovative, movement-led funding mechanisms that allow resources to reach smaller organisations directly, without layers of bureaucracy or gatekeeping. Hira Amjad of Dastak Foundation emphasised the importance of creating “country or regional level funds and mechanisms without intermediaries”, sharing the impact of the Sang Pour Sang networks grants in Pakistan, which through country-level mapping and targeted grants that have strengthened the Pakistani menstrual movement, supported policy wins, and built collective action and advocacy.
Elizabeth from IIEA spoke to TPEN’s small grants programme, which thanks to the support of the Waterloo Foundation has distributed over £115,000 to more than 40 grassroots organisations working at the intersection of menstrual justice across East Africa.
Speakers stressed that movements also require resourcing to connect, strategise, and learn from one another and other aligned justice movements. Menstrual justice does not exist in isolation, and participants spoke about the importance of building solidarity with other social justice movements and learning from their successes. “If we want to address menstrual justice, then we need to be working with, reaching out to and learning from those who are engaged in movements across the world,” said Arundati.
04. Bridge the gap between grassroots knowledge and global advocacy
There is an urgent need and an opportunity to strengthen the relationship between menstrual justice networks and global policy spaces to catalyse progress within the Global Shared Agenda.
Across contexts, grassroots networks are already generating vital evidence, insight, and solutions. Yet this knowledge is underfunded, fragmented and disconnected from global advocacy processes. Scarce resources and exclusive decision-making spaces mean that simply being ‘in the room’ is challenging enough, and the panel echoed the need for networks to come together to share learning and build a collective voice and evidence base powerful enough to influence institutions and hold governments to account.
“This work needs intergovernmental coordination, as you hold the government to account you need to make sure there are no musical chairs. We cannot shift power without policy.” - Wambui, Zamara Foundation, TPEN
What’s happening in the menstrual space is a microcosm of the failings of the global system at large, and as ever, the responsibility lies with those holding wealth and power to shift this system. Grassroots action needs INGO’s, academics, policymakers and donors to create space for grassroots leadership - to resource, equip, and accompany these networks in building the mechanisms which enable them to shape agendas, influence decisions, and meaningfully embed community knowledge into policy-making.
As Arundati, Coordinator at the Global Menstrual Collective reflected:
“There is a common thread that is linking us here today. This is where I think global directives like the Global Menstrual Collective can play a role to bring ideas together. That wonderful marriage between global advocacy and grassroots advocacy.”
We asked the audience:
What does menstrual justice mean to you?
(Hover to pause)
We asked the audience:
What is the one thing I can do to shift power to grassroots networks?
This session was made possible by the generosity and support of:
