Spotlight on 5 Grants for Menstrual Hygiene Management

This month on the blog we are featuring stories about menstrual hygiene management in anticipation of Menstrual Hygiene Day on May 28th.

We took a plunge into the grants data available on our funding map and picked five example grants that highlight how funders work with implementing partners to ensure safe access to sanitation and menstrual hygiene management for women and girls around the world.

In 2012, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded a $930,000 grant to Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust to support community institutions in poor villages in India to adopt safe and healthy sanitation and menstrual hygiene behaviors and practices.

To learn how gender fits within Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Strategy, click here.

To learn more about how Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust is addressing the cross-section between gender inequality and sanitation, click here.

Since 2014, the Canadian Government has provided $7,5million in support for UNICEF’s WinS for Girls program to address the menstrual hygiene management needs and cultural norms that are barriers for adolescent girls to attending and performing well at school.

To read about the results achieved to date through the WinS for Girls project, click here.

Curious how government funding compares to foundation grantmaking for WASH around the world? Our funding map includes OECD and foundation funding.

In 2012, the Global Fund for Women awarded a $63,000 grant to Save Somali Women and Children to provide dignity kits and psycho-social support to women and girls in IDP camps in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Learn about Global Fund for Women’s approach to grantmaking for women-led organizations here.

Check out Save Somali Women and Children’s WASH activities here.

In 2015, Horncrest Foundation awarded a $5,000 grant to Dignity Period to support research and education on menstrual hygiene management as well as production and distribution of environmentally friendly reusable sanitary pads in Ethiopia.

Horncrest Foundation is a New York-based family foundation established in 1960 see what else they fund by looking them up on the funding map.

Learn how Dignity Period is providing access to safe sanitation and menstrual hygiene management for girls in rural Ethiopia here.

In 2013, Segal Family Foundation awarded a $40,000 grant to Sustainable Health Enterprises for operationalizing sanitary pad production and distribution in Rwanda.

Curious how Segal Family Foundation works with partners across Africa to ensure youth access to health services and education? Click here.

Watch this video and learn about Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE) social enterprise approach, helping women to jumpstart social businesses to manufacture and distribute affordable menstrual pads.

By Inga Ingulfsen

As the editor for WASHfunders I’m always eager to get your feedback. Tell me what you would like more (and less) of on WASHfunders.org and how you are using our resources to find funding or compare your grantmaking to peers. Shoot me an email at ihi@foundationcenter.org or find me on twitter @ingaingulfsen or @WASHfunders.