Interwoven: Stitching Together Climate Justice and Menstrual Equity

On May 28th, 2025, as part of Feminitt Caribbean’s Safe Cycle Week, Interwoven invited attendees into a space of possibility, and offered participants the language to reimagine, to rethink and to dream.  Dreamers were invited to stretch their thinking and wonder: what if we treated menstruation as part of our planet’s story, not apart from it?  

Some events stay with you not because they were loud,  but because they were layered, tender and unflinching.  Interwoven was a gathering of story, science and resistance. 

Hosted at ARC Co-Create in Tunapuna, Interwoven brought together Ecologist and Systems Thinker,  Simone  Ganpat, and Sustainable Period Advocate Amy Li Baksh for an evening that stitched together hope, vision and care to explore the deep, often overlooked connection between menstrual equity and climate justice. 

Because yes, periods are planetary.

Simone Ganpat, Ecologist and Founder of Kairi Initiatives and Mind the Earth, led the climate talk portion of the evening with a captivating blend of ecology and storytelling.

“You cannot separate the body from the land”

- Simone Gangpat

Simone Ganpat delivered more than a talk, she held up a  mirror.  Through the story of Sarah, a young girl navigating her first period amidst climate collapse, cultural science and failing infrastructure, Ganpat exposed the way menstrual inequity is magnified by environmental injustice. 

The rising tide that turns water brackish. The broken school toilets. The absence of language. Sarah, like many girls, stops going to school. And no one talks about why.

“What we are witnessing is the result of a colonial logic,” Ganpat explained, “that prioritises extraction and separation over natural cycles, connection and regeneration.  We desecrate  the earth.  We  shame the menstruating body.  We tear apart what was never meant to be divided.”

But the Earth has another story; she bleeds, she births, she renews. 

What if we built systems around that intelligence? 

Ganpat’s vision is revolutionary in its softness:  

Treat menstruation as ecological, as sacred and design-worthy.  

As a public concern that requires infrastructure and not improvisation.

Teach menstrual and ecological cycles side-by-side.
Fund infrastructures of care.
Design for flow, not friction.
Tell the stories of what happens when systems fail—and what we did next.

Through poetic insight and grounded critique, she challenged us to imagine systems that honour both bodily and ecological rhythms. “If you are a designer, build for flow, not friction... if you are a funder, invest in infrastructures of care… if you are a storyteller, gather and tell stories of when systems fail and what we did next.”

Ganpat’s message was clear: your  pain is  not just personal, it is systemic.  And your voice is a tool. Menstruation deserves thoughtful planning, investment and innovation. Treating menstruation as design-worthy means integrating menstrual needs into the way we design products, policies, spaces and systems, not as an afterthought, but intentionally.  

Pad Making Workshop -  Making  Resistance with Your Hands

Following Ganpat’s powerful segment, the event moved into a pad-making workshop facilitated by Amy Li Baksh, Caribbean creative and founder of The Lilypads Project. Baksh’s work focuses on sustainable menstrual products and community-based sexual and reproductive health education across the Caribbean. Their workshop invited attendees to physically engage with the work of care, sustainability, and menstruation by crafting their own reusable pads.

More than craft, the workshop was a form of activism.  The simple, communal act of sewing offered participants a chance to reflect on the tangible ways we can resist systems of waste and inaccessibility. 

Making menstruation sustainable is  rooted in  reclaiming autonomy, reducing environmental harm, and reimagining menstruation as something to be held, supported, and shared, rather than hidden away.

From “Per¡od” to the  #BreaktheSigmaPassthePad school tour to Interwoven, Safe Cycle Week 2025 did more than raise awareness. It created space for community-powered change.  Interwoven closed out Safe Cycle Week 2025, a week-long campaign that reclaimed space for menstruating bodies.  It was a reminder that small actions matter.  Systems do not only shift through legislation, they shift through community, through design, through education and most of all through showing up. 

Interwoven was a space of reimagining;a  weaving together of care, critique, and community.   As we face the realities of climate collapse and deepening inequality, Simone Ganpat reminded us that “change at the smallest scale reflects change at the largest scale. By addressing menstruation not just as biology but as ecology, and not just as care but as justice, we can begin to thread a new  future where no one is left behind.”

So here’s the invitation, as offered by Ganpat:  Keep talking, build and fund with dignity in mind, support people and projects creating sustainable options.  Teach both cycles, menstrual and ecological, as science, not shame.