In many communities, a sanitary pad is still something to be hidden tucked quickly into a bag, wrapped in newspaper, passed hand to hand like something shameful. Menstruation happens to roughly half the population, and yet the conversations around it are still held in whispers and in many communities, it is still considered taboo. Girls grow up learning that what their bodies do each month is something to manage privately, quietly, and without question.
Anisha Ansari grew up watching this silence and found herself unable to accept it. Why is something so natural treated like a secret?
That question became a movement.
From Classroom to Community
Anisha is a first-year undergraduate student pursuing a B.Sc. (Honours) in Biology at Azim Premji University but her journey as a change maker didn't begin in a lecture hall. It began in a Teach For India classroom, where Fellows she fondly called didi and bhaiya created something she hadn't fully experienced before: a space where a young girl's voice was worth listening to.
"I used to think of myself as an average student who was more interested in sports," she says. "But my didi and bhaiya helped me understand that I could do more. They taught me to listen, to respect different perspectives, and to believe that I could make a difference."
That belief didn't stay in the classroom. Through the Kids Education Revolution (KER) a Teach For India student leadership program and the Fellow of the Future initiative, Anisha began looking at her community with new eyes. She started asking not just what the problems were, but what she could actually do about them.
The answer, when it came, was clear.
Building Something From Nothing
In 2023, Anisha founded Menstruation Matters: a youth-led initiative dedicated to breaking the silence around menstrual health through honest, stigma-free conversation.
It did not begin easily. The team struggled to find a consistent meeting space. As young people working on a topic that made many adults uncomfortable, they weren't always taken seriously. Community members were hesitant. Some dismissed them outright.
They kept going.
They ran workshops and surveys. They took to the streets with nukkad nataks street plays that brought conversations about periods to public spaces in ways that were accessible and impossible to ignore. They partnered with Menstrupedia, whose illustrated comic books gave the team both a deeper understanding of menstrual health and a tool for engaging communities that found formal education materials intimidating.
Slowly, something shifted. People started to stay. To ask questions. To talk.
What Growth Looks Like
What began as small online conversations with friends and family has grown into a team of 40–45 volunteers running workshops and awareness sessions across communities. In 2025, Menstruation Matters completed its first full cohort a milestone celebrated through Ehsaas, a closing event organised with the support of iTeach and Astitva.
The name feels fitting. Ehsaas means feeling — and that, at its core, is what this initiative asks of people. To feel the weight of a silence that was never necessary. To feel the relief of finally speaking.
What Comes Next
Anisha isn't stopping here. She wants to expand Menstruation Matters to include conversations about sustainable menstrual products and menopause two topics still largely absent from community dialogue, even among those who've grown more comfortable talking about periods.
Her vision is straightforward, even if the path isn't: a world where menstruation is discussed openly, accurately, and without shame.
"When people start talking about menstruation freely, it becomes easier to share the right information and break myths," she says. "That is how real change begins."
She would know. She started with one question and a refusal to let the silence answer it.
