From Grassroots to National Stage: WonderWoman Nigeria at the First Menstrual Health & Hygiene Management Summit 2025
On June 26, 2025, Nigeria marked a historic milestone with the first-ever Menstrual Health and Hygiene Management (MHHM) Nigeria Summit: a national gathering dedicated entirely to menstrual dignity, justice, and policy reform.
Co-convened by WonderWoman Nigeria, Alora Reusable Pads, and A Well-Informed Adolescent (AWA) Initiative, the summit brought together government leaders, development partners, civil society actors, researchers, and youth advocates to confront a critical but long-neglected issue.
For WonderWoman Nigeria, this moment represented something much deeper:
a grassroots movement rising to the national level to help shape policy, shift narratives, and ensure that community realities inform national decisions.
A Grassroots Beginning - A National Calling
WonderWoman Nigeria has spent years working directly with girls and women across communities: from internally displaced persons (IDP) camps to underserved schools, rural settlements, and hard-to-reach urban communities.
We have listened to stories of stigma.
We have witnessed girls miss school because they could not access safe products.
We have seen period poverty up close - not as statistics, but as lived realities.
These grassroots experiences shaped our advocacy, our programming, and our fight to make menstrual dignity impossible to ignore.
And now, they shape our contribution to the national menstrual health policy conversation.
The summit was a natural extension of this journey.
A Collective National Effort
Held at the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) Headquarters Auditorium, Abuja, the summit hosted over 350 participants from:
• Federal Ministry of Women Affairs (Chief Host)
• Federal Ministry of Health
• Federal Ministry of Education
• Federal Ministry of Water Resources
• Federal Ministry of Budget & National Planning
• UNFPA
• UNICEF
• UN Women
• WaterAid Nigeria
• Plan International Nigeria
• Civil society organizations
• Disability-rights advocates
• Youth-led groups
• Researchers and innovators
The diversity of this gathering signaled an important shift: menstrual health is no longer a fringe concern; it is recognized as a national development priority.
A Summit Built on Realities From the Field
Throughout the sessions, one truth was clear:
the biggest insights, the most urgent needs, and the most transformative ideas often come from grassroots communities.
Panels highlighted:
1. The cost of stigma on girls’ education
2. Menstrual health challenges for girls with disabilities
3. The economic burden of period poverty
4. Waste management and sustainability
5. Local product innovation
6. Community-based research
7. Budgeting for menstrual health
8. Youth-driven solutions and digital education tools
Young girls, school pupils and community advocates alike shared stories that grounded policy conversations in lived experience - a core perspective WonderWoman Nigeria has long championed.
National Commitments That Reflect Community Realities
The summit concluded with clear, time-bound commitments, including:
• Finalizing Nigeria’s National MHH Policy by Q4 2025
• Embedding menstrual health into the National Development Plan (2026–2030)
• Ensuring gender-responsive national budgets include MHH
• Encouraging local production of safe, affordable, inclusive menstrual products
• Developing a national anti-stigma campaign led by youth and community organizations
• Integrating MHH into school curriculums, disability inclusion frameworks, and WASH programming
These commitments reflect what grassroots advocates, including WonderWoman Nigeria, have been calling for:
policy that speaks to real experiences, not assumptions.
As a grassroots organization, stepping into national policy conversations is not about recognition, but responsibility.
We carry the stories of girls and women who have trusted us.
We carry the voices of communities that have long been unheard.
And now, we carry these realities into national spaces where change can be formalized and scaled.
The First MHHM Nigeria Summit 2025 was a turning point: for the country, for the movement, and for organizations like ours that began in communities and now stand ready to influence national change.
WonderWoman Nigeria remains committed to:
• amplifying community voices
• shaping policy with lived realities
• challenging stigma
• strengthening menstrual equity programs
• and building a Nigeria where menstrual dignity is a right, not a privilege
Grassroots to national. Community to policy.
And stories to systems change.
This is the journey - and we are only getting started.