Nadya Okamoto - Founder of PERIOD.org
Nadya Okamoto, who grew up in Portland, OR, is a 22-year-old Harvard student. She is the Founder of PERIOD (period.org), an organization fighting to end period poverty and stigma that she founded at the age of 16.
Nadya founded PERIOD after having conversations with homeless women and collecting an anthology of stories of their use of toilet paper, socks, brown paper grocery bags, cardboard, and more, to take care of something so natural. At the time, her goal was to serve 20 periods a week for homeless women in Portland, Oregon.
PERIOD is now one of the largest youth-powered NGOs in the country and, since 2014, has addressed over 1,000,000 periods and registered over 700 campus chapters in all 50 US states and in over 30 countries.
In 2017, Nadya ran for public office in Cambridge, MA at age 19 — becoming the youngest Asian American to run in US history. Nadya recently published her debut book, Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement with publisher Simon & Schuster, which made the Kirkus Reviews list for Best Young Adult Nonfiction of 2018.
Nadya is currently the Executive Director of PERIOD.org and is the Chief Brand Officer of JUV Consulting, a Generation Z marketing agency based in NYC. She is included in the latest cohorts of Forbes 30 under 30, Bloomberg 50 “Ones to Watch” and People Magazine's Women Changing the World.
Even now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, PERIOD is still hard at work. They remain fully operational and are committed to serving the marginalized communities that are being hit hardest by this global crisis.
Nadya truly is an Empowered Female. Her drive, vision and execution on such an important, and often ignored topic, at such a young age, is incredible. We thank her for the tremendous work she has done on behalf of marginalized and at-risk women.
Please make sure you take a moment below to explore some of the videos, writings and the Instagram account of Nadya and PERIOD.org.
PERIOD.org Instagram: @periodmovement
Nadya Okamoto Instagram: @nadyaokamoto
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Click the links below to watch Nadya’s videos:
Speech at the 2019 MAKERS Conference on PERIOD
“What activism means to me” - 2019
Stories of Women - my story of jealousy | tw: sexual/child abuse
The Menstrual Movement - TEDxPortland 2016
Clip from SHAPE event, 2019 - on self-worth
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Click the links below to read some of Nadya’s writing:
CNN, Period Poverty in Schools
CNN, Covid response with PERIOD
Bustle, The Menstrual Movement