Another week, another amazing conversation!
This week we chatted to the Minister of Menstruation Candice Chirwa (if you don’t know her, where have you been living lol!) and Faeeza Lok. Candice Chirwa is a menstruation activist, speaker, and academic working towards destigmatising menstruation while also lobbying for an end to period poverty in South Africa. Candice believes that women and girls deserve fundamental human rights. Through this belief and her academic background, Candice educates the youth on menstrual education and brings Eduliftment with her award-winning NGO, QRATE. Faeeza is currently the head of Sales and Business Development of MINA Cups – where for every MINA cup sold, the company will donate one to the MINA foundation which distributes it to a woman in need. She is also a Youth Capital Influencer committed to tackling the systemic challenges young people face in Education (read here).
REMEMBER
The #BeTheDrivingForce series includes a WhatsApp group, where young people can pose questions that will be answered in Instagram Lives, every Wednesday from 6 to 7pm for the duration of the series. Join the Whatsapp group here: #BeTheDrivingForce whatsapp group There will also be a special pop-up newsletter for the duration of the campaign. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Watch the live:
The two activists started off by describing menstrual rights period poverty. ‘It’s mind blowing how a biological function causes major human rights violations if they don’t have access to sanitary products and infrastructure”, says Candice. Education is a major point, as we need to remove the stigma around menstruating. Candice adds that “The silence around menstruating leads to menstruators isolating themselves because of the stigma around it”. Access to correct sexual reproductive health information was highlighted. Faeeza highlighted the role and responsibility that men and boys have to understand the biological working of the period “women and men need to understand it together”.
What is the way forward to make a change?
Inclusivity and the importance of small actions within our control were highlighted.
Faeeza and Candice stressed the need to challenge the school curriculum where menstruation is not only briefly explained in biology textbooks; the content in the curriculum should include information on how menstruators can manage the experience and the taboos [ Don’t laugh if you see that a girl stained her uniform], and also teaches boys how they can support menstruators.
The impact of period poverty on gender inequality is seen in the school environment and workplace environment. Girls do not attend school and women do not go to work because the infrastructure at school and work is not suitable for them to manage their periods.
Faeeza mentioned that every 3 young learners out of 10 miss a week of school a month because of period poverty; missing such important learning time keeps them at a serious disadvantage. Candice encouraged individual employers and schools to develop policies to safeguard and include the rights of menstruators.
In terms of individual actions, Candice and Faeeza underlined the need to control “dinner table” conversations with family and friends – we can share the experience of menstruation that will lead to breaking the taboos. These conversations can also share the knowledge of all the sanitary products that menstruators can have access to such as period panties, cups.
Open Dialogue is running a brief survey to find out how you feel about the challenges young people face and the support they need to bring about change https://opendialogue.co.za/Surveys/dailyvox.php
Make sure to keep an eye out on our social media for the announcement of our next speakers. It’s going to be an exciting one.
The #BeTheDrivingForce series includes a WhatsApp group, where young people can pose questions that will be answered in Instagram Lives, every Wednesday from 6 to 7pm for the duration of the series. Join the Whatsapp group here: #BeTheDrivingForce whatsapp group There will also be a special pop-up newsletter for the duration of the campaign. Sign up for the newsletter here.
