Taiwan is one of Asia’s leaders in menstrual equity—the first and only country in the region to mandate free period products in schools. Menstrual health education is mandated in schools, and female employees are guaranteed menstrual leave. A key driver of this incredible progress is With Red, Taiwan’s first NGO dedicated to menstrual equity. Founded in 2019 by Vivi Lin, With Red has created the world’s only museum dedicated to menstruation, provided menstrual health education workshops to 400 schools across the country, and advocated for period policies to Taiwan’s government. It also trains teachers how to provide menstrual health education workshops. To evaluate this teacher-training model, With Red has partnered with Hokkaido University’s Laboratory of Human Ecology. Together, we are interviewing With Red-trained teachers to gain feedback about With Red’s curriculum and training model. Our findings will help With Red improve its curriculum and advocate for menstrual health education policies. Beyond that, we hope to provide educators and policymakers globally with insight into how to design an effective menstrual health curriculum. To kickstart this project, I traveled to Taiwan twice in March and May 2026. There, I attended a parent-child menstrual health education workshop led by Yan-Han Yang, With Red’s Education Advocacy Coordinator. The workshop was a heartwarming family bonding activity that showed the possibilities of a world where everyone was educated about periods and viewed it as the normal process it was. Inspired by With Red’s educational materials, I have also collaborated with them to create a pop-up museum exhibit at Hokkaido University. With Red’s Period Museum discusses topics ranging from the biology of menstruation and the history of period products to period euphemisms, period poverty, and period policies in Taiwan. To bring this museum to Japan, I am working with Yuika Oose, a first-year master’s student at the Laboratory of Human Ecology, to create a pop-up exhibit situated within Japan’s cultural context. We aim not only to educate the public about menstruation, but also to encourage them to dream of a truly period-friendly future in Japan. Together, the Laboratory of Human Ecology and With Red will deepen our knowledge of menstrual health education while introducing our communities to different cultural perspectives on menstruation. We look forward to a continued partnership into the future, where our research will help both countries progress towards menstrual equity.
