The Days for Girls Podcast

Mira Kaddoura is a feminist advocate, creative master-mind and the founder of Red & Co.: a female and minority owned boutique consultancy that helps brands make a meaningful impact on society. A staunch advocate of female leadership, gender equality and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Mira is passionate about harnessing creative campaigns to help build a more equitable world for all. Join us...

Meet Jess Straight and Emma Cihanowyz: college students, menstrual equity champions and leaders of the Days for Girls Club at Penn State University – serving as president/founder (Jess) VP of Advocacy/Administrator (Emma). During the pandemic, DfG Penn State pivoted from sewing kits to running period product drives and polling hundreds of students about the state of menstrual equity on campus. Fue...

Kiya Gezahegne is a feminist researcher and lecturer specializing in migrant studies, adolescent research and gender policy. She is passionate about harnessing the power of research to drive more supportive policies for women, girls, youth and refugees across Ethiopia. Kiya currently serves as the in-country qualitative researcher for Gender and Adolescents: Global Evidence (GAGE), and also contri...

Christina Lowery is the CEO of Girl Rising: a nonprofit that’s shifting the way the world values and invests in girls. Decades of research show that girls’ access to education and opportunity is the single most effective factor in transforming global issues like poverty, gender equality and climate change. Through storytelling campaigns, youth mentorship and advocacy work, GR is closing the gender...

Eva Marie Carney is Founder and Board President of the Kwek Society: an organization working to eliminate period poverty in Native schools and communities across the United States. She is a human rights lawyer and an elected legislator of the Shawnee, Oklahoma-based Citizen Potawatomi Nation – of which is also a citizen. In this episode, Eva dives into her passion for fighting (and shining a light...

Emily Bell McCormick is the founder of The Policy Project: a nonpartisan group of individuals and organizations that advocate for healthy, long-term U.S. policy changes at the local and national level. She started the collective after a visit to South Africa’s Apartheid Museum awakened her to the massive power of “a thousand tiny policies.” Now, she spends her days harnessing that power to tackle...

Pam Geist is the brand director of This is L .: a mission-driven period care brand dedicated to making exceptional menstrual products accessible for all. L. offers a wide range of beautiful, sustainable, body-friendly tampons, pads, liners and wipes at an affordable cost – while also working with non-profits like Days for Girls to support menstrual equity projects around the world. As one of our b...

Beatrice Dixon is the founder and CEO of The Honeypot Company: an innovative, natural, plant-based feminine care system that’s changing the intimate wellness game for all people with vaginas (and a treasured Days for Girls partner!). The idea for The Honeypot came to Beatrice in a visionary dream – first as a means of solving her own vaginal health problem, before blossoming into a revolutionary p...

Brittany Barreto is the co-founder, executive director and podcast host of FemTech Focus: a nonprofit that’s revolutionizing the women’s health tech (femtech) industry through connection, capital and collaborative innovation. She’s on a mission to disrupt the male-centric status quo in healthcare, and bring much-needed focus and funding to underserved women’s issues. As a geneticist-turned-venture...

Puleng is a public health education and gender specialist with more than 20 years of experience managing programs within the HIV, gender, sexual and reproductive health and human rights spaces. She is passionate about Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and also cares deeply about social change communications and community capacity development. She has worked with...

Celeste Mergens is the founder and CEO of Days for Girls International . Since 2008, she has grown the organization from a small group of local sewists into an award-winning, global NGO serving menstruators and their communities in 144 countries (and counting). A heart-centered and compassion-driven visionary, Celeste has dedicated her life to showing every girl, everywhere that she is strong, wor...

Christine Mwangi is a social change agent, global citizen and founder of Be A Rose, Inc.: a nonprofit tackling period poverty in Grand Rapids, MI. Be A Rose, Inc is on a mission to connect local women and girls with sustainable period products (including those made by DfG!) and health education at zero cost – through partnerships with local orgs, schools and more. They distribute around 60,000 pad...

Chris Bobel is a scholar of social movements, an author and a professor specializing in the intersection of feminist theory and menstrual health activism. She lectures on Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts, served as president of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research and has helmed a wide range of groundbreaking literary works pertaining to the menstrual...

Sipiwo Matshoba is the Chief Director of Social Empowerment and Participation for South Africa’s Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities. He is fiercely committed to the pursuit of about gender equity and women’s empowerment - with a special passion for helping girls stay in school and go on to become productive members of society (without menstruation getting in the way). He has...

Kelly Olson is a highly-acclaimed puberty book author and former sex ed teacher, with a passion for helping youth navigate coming-of-age challenges. Her critically-endorsed book, “Chill Out & Stop Making This Weird: A Girl’s Survival Guide Extraordinaire,” follows the journey of a young girl going through the ups and downs of puberty – including starting menstruation, developing her first crus...

Ina Jurga is a menstrual health innovator and sanitation engineer specializing in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) development. She has led partnership-building and education projects for international NGO (and Days for Girls partner) WASH United since 2012, and serves as the international coordinator for Menstrual Hygiene Day. She is passionate about creating collective impact for menstruator...

Marni Sommer is a renowned researcher, professor and author in the menstrual health field. She specializes in puberty research and adolescent-focused interventions, gender and sexual health, and the intersection of public health and education. Marni currently leads the Gender, Adolescent Transitions and Environment (GATE) Program in Columbia University’s Department of Sociomedical Sciences: a rese...

Khayrieh Al Assaad is a women’s rights advocate, civil engineer and businesswoman from Akkar Al Atika in North Lebanon. Since joining DfG as our Lebanon Country Representative in 2017, she has led the distribution of more than 10,000 DfG Kits for Syrian refugee women and more than 3,000 Kits for Lebanese women affected by last summer’s Beirut explosions. She also works as a site engineer, coaches...

Chipo Chikomo is an award-winning DfG Social Entrepreneur, businesswoman and innovator whose work is revolutionizing the menstrual health space in Zimbabwe. She is passionate about providing truly sustainable, locally-led solutions to period poverty - and empowering women and girls with the menstrual products, education and technical skills they need to thrive. She is the brilliant mind behind Nha...

Deborah Jordan Brooks, PH.D, (she/hers) is a university professor, author and researcher specializing in political science and female leadership. As an Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, her teachings focus on women, politics, and the media - while her scholarly research examines female empowerment, public opinion, and political advertising. Deborah is the founder of IMHER (th...

Janet Mbugua (she/her/hers) is a media influencer and gender rights advocate, especially when it comes to menstrual health. She started the Inua Dada Foundation, meaning “uplift the sister”, which works to change policy and provide education to girls and women in need with their period cycles. Among her many accomplishments, publishing her book “My First Time” is one of her most influential projec...

A well known figure in the menstrual health space, Danielle Keiser (she/her/hers) brings global communities together through social impact and advocacy. She is the Executive Director and Founder of Menstrual Health Hub and a partner at Madamí, a consulting agency focused on gender and female health innovation.  In this episode, Danielle talks to us about paving the way for positive change in the m...

Today’s guest is Tania Safi (they/them), an award-winner videographer and storyteller. Throughout their decade-long media career, they have produced everything from native digital entertainment for Buzzfeed to feature documentaries on human trafficking in India. They even created a few short documentaries for Days for Girls, which we will talk about in this episode. Tania is currently the Head of...

Nancy Muller is PATH’s former Senior Program Officer in women’s health and menstruation, with more than 30 years of experience in the global health field. She currently works as an independent consultant at the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition, where her team strives to break down the barriers of menstrual awareness by improving health systems globally.  Today, Nancy joins us to share her pe...

Dr. Julie Hennegan (she/her/hers) is a mixed-methods researcher specializing in global adolescence and women’s health. She is passionate about exploring the social and environmental determinants of health, as well as the design and evaluation elements of complex social interventions. Julie’s work focuses on menstrual health, sexual and reproductive health, and the gendered dimensions of water, san...