Her Flow to end period poverty in Ja
ISTARTED HerFlow in 2016 as a project for an Advocacy Training Programme I did with Women Empowerment for Change (WeChange). HerFlow was created to address the stigma and shame still associated with periods, that I experienced when I was younger and that I observed still existed, so I started by creating Period Awareness Day on October 24.
In 2017, Period Awareness Day expanded to a week and included a school tour where we visited 10 schools in three days. This tour was especially life-changing for me because it was brought to my attention that much of the challenges I had as an adolescent still existed. Young women are still not empowered to embrace their bodies, still not educated about their reproductive health and rights, and many of them are not equipped with the basic items they need to get through their daily lives – many of them were also affected by period poverty. As a matter of fact, one of
these young ladies said to me that she was able to use one pad for the five days of her entire period. It dawned on me that she was not alone and I wanted to find out how many more girls were affected.
PERIOD POVERTY
Unfortunately, we don’t have the statistics on the number of women and girls in Jamaica who are affected by period poverty. But, so that we can have a glance at the number of girls in public schools, as a guideline, I took a look at the National School Feeding Programme because I made a common-sense assumption that, if these young ladies cannot afford lunch, they will not be able to afford menstrual products either.
Approximately 300,000 students are enrolled in the National School Feeding Programme in public schools. If approximately half of the students are girls – 150,000 – then an estimate of about 70,000 of them may be experiencing puberty.
In 2018, HerFlow was one of the recipients of the Women’s History Month Grant (US$20,000) from the US Embassy and we were about to execute a school tour – dubbed Free HerFlow that included 26 schools and the women’s prison.
During the free HerFlow school tour in 2018, we conducted interviews with all the guidance counsellors at the individual schools. We tried to get an idea of the number of students who are directly affected by period poverty and what they did when they had their period. From the interviews, we were able to ascertain the following:
• Among the seventh-graders in high schools, 13 per cent of girls, on average, use alternative items such as tissue, old cloths, banana leaves, and others when they have their periods.
• Among the seventh-graders in high schools, 20 per cent of girls, on average, are absent from school because of their periods.
• 24 per cent of seventh-grade girls, on average, visit the guidance counsellor or nurse’s office each month for menstrual products.
• A total of 44 per cent of seventhgrade girls are affected by period poverty. Some of them stay home while on their periods, some ask the guidance counsellors or other teachers for products, while others resort to using alternatives. Since the inception of HerFlow, we have been able to supply women and girls with menstrual products for over 50,000 periods and we are on track to hit 100,000 by the end of 2019. We have also conducted more than 200 period education sessions in public schools and we have established events that empower women to find solutions to female reproductive health issues such as fibroids and endometriosis.
Ending period poverty in Jamaica is a major focus of HerFlow and we are committed to ensuring that women and girls get full access to menstrual products when they need them.
Finally, I want to personally thank our partners Stayfree, Confidence, Curves, Cubbies Wipes, JMMB, Always, US Embassy, PrintIt876 and many others who donated products, stepped up and contributed to help our programmes succeed.
For more information on our projects and to contact us, please follow @herflow on social media or visit our website www.embraceherflow.com.
October is Period Awareness Month and there will be major activities that will benefit women and girls centred on female reproductive health. She shouldn’t have to choose between her period and her education.