AMIKA GEORGE

‘big decisions are being made about our future by people who won’t see the consequences’

how did you spend your teenage years? Probably not running a campaign to end period poverty, lobbying the Government for free menstrual products or putting on club nights at university, where students dress as tampons and dance under banners that say ‘stop taxing our periods’. But that’s what 19-year old Cambridge student Amika George can add to her CV.

In 2017, she started the #Freeperiods movement (with a petition that has garnered 300k signatures) after realising some girls have to skip school because they can’t afford menstrual products. She assumed the Government would do something. It didn’t.

The fact it is a gendered topic only infuriated her more. ‘As if the issues that affect us aren’t being acknowledged,’ she says. ‘It was out of that lack of response that I felt as if I had to respond.’

She thinks we’re at a crucial time for activism, where young people are particularly politically engaged. ‘Maybe it’s the state of the world now and the fact that it seems a lot of big decisions are being made about our future by people who aren’t necessarily going to see the consequences,’ she adds. Is it thrilling or frustrating that people like her, Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai are having to mobilise communities instead of politicians? ‘In a lot of ways, it’s really cool and exciting,’ she says. ‘But it’s also scary and worrying.’

Because of Amika, the Government has pledged to provide free menstrual products in schools and colleges in England from 2020. She’s excited that activism has become accessible and youth-led; something she thinks social media has played a big part in. She sometimes worries about the commercialisation of issues, but rationalises that if it means an important message is getting exposure, then ‘it’s beneficial’.

So how should a novice get started? Get on with it, use social media and find a community to work with, she advises. Crucially, she’s hopeful activism isn’t going anywhere. ‘It’s just going to become something that’s more and more mainstream and normalised in society so we won’t even think of phrases like “year of the activist”, because everyone will be an activist. That’s my dream,’ she says. AS

Amika’s book Make It Happen (Harper Collins) is out next year.