When Ayesha Amin, a renowned Pakistani women’srights activist, first saw a condom in a workshop, she refused to touch it.

“I felt so embarrassed that I just wanted to disappear,” she says. Her shame, however, turned into curiosity and this moment helped Amin realize that talking about sex and reproduction shouldn’t be taboo.

In 2018, Amin founded the nonprofit Baithak:Challenging Taboos, which has reached 300,000 women across Pakistan with workshops on family planning, menstrual health and gender-based violence.

Having witnessed one of the worst climate disasters in Pakistan’s history, Amin has also been a fierce advocate for climate policies that address the needs ofyoung girls and women.

Together we talk about

• her dogged persistence tonever stop dreaming
• her daring acts of resistance to patriarchal norms
• dismantling harmful menstruation myths
• and about why there has to be morethan just 2 women out of 50 men in climate meetings.

To learn more about Ayesha Amin’s work, check out Baithak’s website, Baithak’s Instagram account or Amin’s Linkedin profile.

TIP: Help de-stigmatize menstruation by talkingabout it with your close ones.