The Dugdale Trust for Women & Girls and the Chalice Foundation come together in a unique working relationship.

We are excited about this partnership. Between us we are well placed to help realise positive menstrual wellbeing, which in turn will assist women to achieve gender equity. The Chalice Foundation was founded by Jane Bennett to promote menstrual wellbeing, provide quality menstrual education for all demographics and train and support menstrual educators. The Victorian Women’s Trust created The Dugdale Trust for Women & Girls to enable harm prevention work to be done on a national level. The Victorian Women’s Trust serves as trustee.

Our journey together around positive menstrual culture began in 2013 when The Dugdale Trust for Women & Girls resolved to explore the contemporary menstrual experience of women and girls, to assess levels of harm and effective mitigation strategies. Thousands of women and girls shared their experiences between 2014 and 2017, and the negative impact of the menstrual taboo on health and wellbeing was shockingly apparent.

These findings were analysed and subsequently published in About Bloody Time: The Menstrual Revolution We Have to Have. In the book’s ‘Call to Action’ authors Jane Bennett and Karen Pickering clearly spell out the next important steps we need to take in the quest to prevent further harm and advance equity and wellbeing.

Publishing this important work was one thing. Using it to press for change is now our joint mission. We have set out our partnership in a Services Agreement, which is our framework that captures our mutual goals around advocacy, community education and outreach work – across families, local communities, schools, and workplaces.

While we are pausing our plans for in-person events, along with the entire community, as we all work to mitigate the worst impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re currently serving our mutual goals by releasing free resources and blogs, and working on a Health Standard for Menstrual Wellbeing. To keep up to date with these offerings sign up here.

You can send us the topics you’re most interested in here.

GOGO Foundation is a registered charity formed to create educational and employment opportunities for women experiencing complex barriers to employment. GOGO Foundation is an expansion of the impactful and innovative work already achieved by our sister organisation, social enterprise GOGO Events. We are working on Sustainable Development Goal #8 by rigorously supporting women to move from a place of vulnerability to economic security and empowered self-determination.

GOGO Foundation has initiated the Period Revolution and spearheaded the Period Summit in Adelaide, 30th June 2021, alongside the SA Commissioner for Children and Young People, Helen Connolly and the Chalice Foundation.

Global Leadership Foundation was formed in 2003 with the intent of raising emotional health levels across the globe, and collaborates with a worldwide network of Fellows with significant expertise in leadership development, strategy, executive coaching and culture change.

Global Leadership Foundation works with individuals and organisations to promote leadership pathways and build leadership capability. They work to make a positive difference to people, businesses and communities through their commitment to the three guiding principles of Self-realisation, Collaboration and Stewardship. These principles underpin the way GLF engages with individuals and organisations.

The Chalice Foundation is very grateful to be receiving valuable mentorship from the Global Leadership Foundation, and in particular one of the co-founders, Gayle Hardie. Thank you Gayle!

In June 2020 the Chalice Foundation and Jane Bennett joined the Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation. Founded by Radha Patel, a Nepalese nurse-educator and menstrual activist, GSCDM recognises the universality and far-reaching impacts of discrimination caused by menstrual stigma around the world.

The GSCDM works closely with the World Health Organisation, and other international and national organisations and government bodies.

GSCDM declares that, ‘each menstruator deserves dignity during menstruation. None should experience any kind of abuse, discrimination, stigma, or restriction associated with menstruation. Discriminatory menstrual practices have impacted the lives of menstruators in short and long term ways, therefore menstrual wellbeing should be considered through a lense of human rights and social justice.’

GSCDM currently has a campaign sitting with the WHO to mark December 8 as Dignified Menstruation Day.

Natural Fertility Management is really where it all began. In 1977 Francesca Naish began counselling women and couples in her unique, secular and natural health-based methods of fertility awareness, initially for contraception but which in time grew to include preconception health care, timing for optimum conception and general reproductive health (menstrual problems and conditions, troubling symptoms of perimenopause and menopause, as well as male fertility problems).

In 1990 Jane Bennett began working with Francesca writing resources and training health practitioners in the Natural Fertility Management methods. This grew from Jane’s own experience of learning and practicing Natural Fertility Management, which was an epiphany of self awareness and empowerment that Jane attributes as the beginning of her life’s work in menstrual cycle authorship and education.

While Natural Fertility Management and the Chalice Foundation have different stated goals, administrative structures and working modes their underlying philosophy is highly compatible, resulting in a mutually supportive collaboration.

Ramona Magazine for Girls is for girls, by girls. It is a one-of-a-kind, collaborative, and creative community in the form of an online magazine. Ramona consists of creative work by female-identifying folks from all over the world, and aims to give their readers a magazine filled with great stories, art, advice, and information in the hopes of leaving them feeling empowered, accepted, and worthy.

Ramona is a place that allows readers and contributors to acknowledge each other for who they are: strong, quirky, clever, unique, beautiful, and everything in between.

In publishing the writing and artwork of young women stories are unique and unapologetically ‘as it is’, including experiences of and attitudes toward periods, the menstrual cycle and fertility, rather than formulaic topics more often found in commercial magazines.

The Chalice Foundation is proud to endorse this powerful platform for real stories, views and creativity.

The Real Period Project is a UK based community organisation whose mission is to promote wellbeing through accessible and sustainable menstrual cycle education. They teach about periods in the context of the whole cycle, acknowledging all the ups and downs of this hormonal ride, currently focusing on the menstrual education needs of primary, secondary and tertiary education scholars, but also interested in supporting older menstruators and those completing or finished with their cycling years.

The Real Period Project and the Chalice Foundation closely support and collaborate with one another, especially and to date with Celebration Day for Girls, Mense-Ed and Natural Fertility Management.

Together we are working for ‘a world where periods are taught as part of the whole menstrual cycle and it is safe for everyone to talk about and experience menstruation.’

The Rite Journey is an in school rite of passage program currently available in over 100 schools in Australia and New Zealand (primarily), as well as South Korea and Belgium.

This comprehensive year-long program is designed for students turning 15 during the year. Included in the program is comprehensive positive menstrual education for both boys and girls, with resources for both teachers and students.

While sessions are often held in single-gender groups with a same-gender teacher careful inclusion and support for gender diverse students is enabled by The Rite Journey and participating schools.

The Rite Journey warmly endorses the work of the Chalice Foundation, and vice versa!

Jane Bennett and Alexandra Pope met in 1993 at the first Natural Fertility Management counsellor training in Randwick, Sydney. As fellow Aquarians and passionate menstrual-fertility educators sparks of recognition and joy ignited. Together they wrote The Pill: Are you Sure It’s for You?, and in 2010 Alexandra returned to the UK and founded Red School with Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer.

Jane and Alexandra continue to support and endorse each other’s work, including the missions and work of both the Red School and Chalice Foundation.

Cath Hakanson has been talking to clients about sex for the past 25 years as a nurse, midwife, sex therapist, researcher, author and educator. She’s spent the past 12 years trying to unravel why parents (herself included) struggle with sex education. Her solution was to create Sex Ed Rescue, an online resource that simplifies sex education and helps parents to empower their children with the right information about sex, so kids can talk to them about anything, no matter what. Cath has trained as a Celebration Day for Girls facilitator and includes positive menstrual education materials as key components of Sex-ed Rescue.

Jane Bennett and Cath Hakanson have shared resources, programs and mutually endorse a positive and intentional approach to sexual and menstrual education.

The Sex Ed Rescue site includes blogs and loads of free resources for diverse scenarios and questions, as well as access to paid courses and materials.