March 8 Fund Supports Menstrual Equity in South Asia
GRÓ GEST is pleased to announce the two latest grant recipients of the March 8 Fund: Sana Lokhandwala from Pakistan and Radhika Modi from India, who will implement two innovative projects addressing menstrual health, stigma, and gender inequality in South Asia. While each initiative targets a distinct context and community—schoolgirls with hearing impairments in Pakistan and employees in corporate workplaces in India—together they confront the widespread social and structural barriers that menstruators face. By addressing menstrual stigma and exclusion across such diverse layers of society, these projects together advance gender equality and menstrual justice in a holistic and systemic way across the region.
A shared challenge: menstrual health and gender inequality
Around the world, menstrual health remains deeply entangled with stigma, harmful social norms, and silence. These barriers compromise the health, dignity, and autonomy of people who menstruate, often leading to school absenteeism, limited economic participation, and exclusion from public life. Whether in classrooms or boardrooms, addressing menstrual stigma is critical to dismantling gender inequalities and creating environments where all can participate fully and with dignity.
In Pakistan, menstrual stigma intersects with entrenched gender norms to create significant barriers for adolescent girls, particularly those with disabilities. Many girls lack access to accurate information, sanitary products, and supportive environments, which contributes to school absenteeism, early marriage, and diminished life opportunities. For girls with hearing impairments, the challenges are even more acute: they often face complete exclusion from menstrual health education due to a lack of materials in sign language and few adults trained to meet their needs. This results in heightened isolation, misinformation, and violations of their rights.
In India, despite growing conversations around workplace diversity and inclusion, menstruation remains largely invisible in professional settings. Many women, transgender, and non-binary employees lack access to adequate hygiene infrastructure, supportive policies, or safe spaces to discuss their needs. This silence perpetuates stigma, contributes to discomfort and absenteeism, and limits career advancement—reinforcing structural gender inequalities in economic life. As a result, countless employees continue to navigate menstrual and reproductive health challenges unsupported in the very environments meant to foster their growth and participation.
Unsilencing
In Pakistan, Sana Lokhandwala, co-founder of HER Pakistan, will lead Unsilencing, the country’s first menstrual health education programme tailored specifically for deaf schoolgirls. Implemented in collaboration with Deaf Reach Schools across Sindh province, the initiative will directly reach 250 schoolgirls with hearing impairments, along with 90 teachers and school staff and 250 caregivers. The project will create educational materials in Pakistan Sign Language (PSL), deliver on-ground awareness sessions, and distribute tailored period kits. By centering the needs of girls who experience compounded discrimination due to disability and menstrual stigma, it aims to reduce school absenteeism, cultivate supportive school and home environments, and lay the groundwork for national advocacy on inclusive menstrual health education.
This is an ambitious yet highly feasible project. Sana Lokhandwala—who is also a recipient of the Vigdís Finnbogadóttir Award—draws on HER Pakistan’s strong track record to deliver the country’s first menstrual education materials in PSL, making this initiative truly innovative. The project employs a participatory, menstruator-centered approach, involving community members throughout. Its implementation is structured across five clear phases over 12 months, with realistic outputs and well-defined responsibilities. For a request of €9,900, bolstered by substantial additional donor support, this is a strategically sound investment that addresses a critical gap in health equity and education. Its potential for influencing national policy and enabling future scale-up further underscores its significance.
Flow at Work
In India, Radhika Modi and her organisation Flow at Work will pilot a project of the same name in New Delhi and Mumbai, working to transform professional settings into
menstrual-friendly environments. The project will engage several organisations, directly benefiting approximately 400-600 menstruating employees, including women, trans men, and non-binary individuals. It will deliver menstrual literacy workshops, facilitate open discussions, co-develop supportive workplace policies, improve access to products and facilities, and train employees as peer advocates. Drawing on participatory, feminist methods and Radhika’s extensive experience in gender and menstrual health, the initiative seeks to normalise menstruation at work, reduce stigma, and build scalable models for menstrual equity across sectors. It will also produce a final report and workplace toolkit to support broader dissemination and future upscaling.
This is a strong, well-structured project that combines a modest budget of €6,000 with well-targeted, practical interventions to advance menstrual equity in workplaces. Featuring a clear and realistic timeline, precisely defined team responsibilities, and a thoughtful sequence of activities—from policy reviews and infrastructure audits to peer advocate training—over two distinct phases across 12 months, the project is both feasible and readily replicable. Drawing on insights from Radhika’s GRÓ GEST final assignment and her extensive experience in gender and menstrual health programming, it reflects deep personal commitment and solid professional credibility. Despite its relatively modest cost, the anticipated return on investment is considerable, with the project poised to drive meaningful change in how workplaces approach menstrual health and inclusion.
Advancing the mission of the GRÓ GEST March 8 Fund
Both initiatives embody the core philosophy of the GRÓ GEST March 8 Fund, which was established to empower GEST alumni as change agents by providing them with seed funding to drive gender-focused projects in their home countries. Launched to mark International Women’s Day, the fund reflects a commitment to locally led, context-specific action at a time when feminist initiatives worldwide face increasing backlash, funding cuts, and restrictions on women’s rights. By equipping alumni with the resources needed to sustain advocacy and reform, the fund strengthens their capacity to champion gender equality and social justice where it is most urgently needed.
By tackling menstrual stigma in schools and workplaces—spaces critical to educational attainment and economic empowerment—these two projects contribute directly to dismantling barriers that hold menstruators back. They also align with global development priorities such as the Sustainable Development Goals (notably SDG 5 on gender equality) and support national efforts in Pakistan and India to create more inclusive environments. GRÓ GEST congratulates Sana Lokhandwala and Radhika Modi on their visionary projects and looks forward to sharing updates on their progress and impact in the coming year.