Every March, the world pauses to celebrate Women’s History Month. But for us at Ivy Cup, this month means something specific. It is a chance to shine a light on the women who have made it their life’s work to change how Nigeria and Africa talk about one of the most natural things a woman’s body does: menstruate.
Period stigma is not abstract. It shows up when a girl misses school because she cannot afford pads. It shows up when a woman whispers about cramps like she is confessing something shameful. It shows up when entire communities still treat menstruation as dirty, dangerous, or simply unmentionable.
The women below decided that was not good enough. Here are five of them you should know.
Lolo Cynthia Ihesie is the founder of LoloTalks, a social enterprise built around one simple but radical idea: that open, honest conversations about sexual and reproductive health can transform communities.
Growing up in Lagos and later studying public health at Monash University in South Africa, Lolo saw firsthand how differently reproductive health was treated depending on where you lived. Back in Nigeria, menstruation was a topic you kept to yourself. In South Africa, it was something people actually talked about. That contrast stuck with her.
She returned to Nigeria and built LoloTalks into a platform that goes into schools, communities, and even prisons to deliver sex education and menstrual health information to people who have never had access to it. She also launched the NoDayOff campaign, distributing pads to women and girls in underserved communities in Lagos, before pivoting toward reusable pads as a more sustainable long-term solution.
In 2020, Leading Ladies Africa named her one of the 100 most influential, powerful, and innovative women in Nigeria. It is a title she has more than earned.
“Menstruation should not be hidden.”
You may not have heard her name yet, but in South Africa, Candice Chirwa is known simply as the Minister of Menstruation.
The title was given to her by a friend during her time doing research for the United Nations on menstrual health policy. It stuck because it fits. Chirwa has spent years running workshops in schools across South Africa through her NGO QRATE, teaching young people that periods are not shameful, dangerous, or something to hide. She is also the co-author of Flow: The Book About Menstruation, and holds a master’s degree from the University of the Witwatersrand with research focused on men’s perspectives on period stigma.
What makes Chirwa’s work particularly powerful is its scope. She is not just talking to girls. She is talking to boys, parents, teachers, and employers, arguing that menstrual health is everyone’s responsibility, not just women’s.
“The one thing we can all do is talk openly about our periods.”
In 2022, Hajara Husseini stood in the middle of Wuse Market in Abuja holding a sign that read: NEED MONEY FOR PAD.
It was not a stunt. It was advocacy, stripped down to its most honest form. By the end of the day, she had collected enough money to buy pads for dozens of women and girls who could not afford them. She has been fighting period poverty in northern Nigeria ever since, distributing products, running menstrual hygiene education, and calling on the Nigerian government to make period products free for women who cannot afford them.
Her work is especially important in northern Nigeria, where the stigma around menstruation is compounded by conservative cultural attitudes and limited infrastructure. In communities where girls fear going to shared toilets during their periods, or where the cost of a pad pack is simply out of reach, Husseini shows up.
Sometimes advocacy looks like a sign and a market stall.
Karo Omu founded the Sanitary Aid Initiative in January 2017 after a late night Twitter conversation about the rising cost of sanitary pads in Nigeria. She put out a tweet saying she was going to buy pads for women in IDP camps and asked if anyone wanted to join her. By the third day, over a million naira had been raised.
What started as a spontaneous act of generosity has since grown into one of Nigeria’s most impactful period poverty organisations. The Sanitary Aid Initiative has now provided free period products and education to over 31,000 girls and women across 13 Nigerian states, reaching low-income communities, public schools, and internally displaced persons camps.
Omu has also published a children’s picture book called The Little Red Spot, about a ten-year-old girl experiencing her first period, designed to help young girls understand and talk about menstruation in language they can actually connect with.
31,000 girls. One woman’s decision to act.
Ivy Cup was founded by Idera Moses-Oke in 2019, after years of personal experience with the discomfort, cost, and inconvenience of disposable menstrual products, and a growing awareness of how little access many Nigerian women have to better alternatives.
As a medical student, Idera spent time speaking with girls and women about their menstrual experiences. The same things kept coming up: expensive products, discomfort, misinformation, and a general sense that periods were something to manage quietly rather than understand properly. Menstrual cups stood out to her as a solution that was safe, reusable, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly, but they were still barely known or understood in Nigeria.
She built Ivy Cup to change that. Since launching, Ivy Cup has served over 1,000 women across 20+ cities in Nigeria, replacing over 500,000 disposable pads and helping users save an average of ₦48,000 over five years compared to buying disposable products.
Beyond the product, Idera also founded the Ivy Sister Initiative, a menstrual health advocacy project focused on education and access for girls in underserved communities. Through 8 outreach programs across 5 schools, the initiative has reached over 3,000 girls with menstrual health education and distributed over 1,000 menstrual products to girls who need them.
Because no girl’s future should be limited by her period.
These five women represent a movement that is bigger than any one person or brand. Period poverty is still a reality for an estimated 37 million women and girls in Nigeria. Menstruation is still surrounded by stigma, misinformation, and silence in communities across the country.
But it is changing. Slowly, honestly, one conversation at a time.
At Ivy Cup, we are proud to be part of this story. If you want to support the work, start with something simple: talk about it. Share this post. Tell a woman in your life something she deserves to know about her period.
The fight for period dignity did not start with us. But we are proud to be part of it.
Want to learn more about Ivy Cup and the Ivy Sister Initiative? Visit www.theivycup.com or follow us on Instagram @theivycup.
