Barrier-breaking new menopause festival to be staged in Perth

HEALTH: Programme of free events inspired by 2017 café project

The world’s first taboo-busting menopause festival will take place in Perth.

Organisers want to break down barriers and help people address the rarely talked about “third stage of life”.

The festival follows the success of a Menopause Café held in the Fair City last summer, which encouraged men and women to share their experiences.

One of the cafés was attended by broadcaster Kirsty Wark, whose documentary The Menopause and Me was an inspiration to project leaders.

Four free events will be held at Perth Theatre this spring as part of the festival, including a sing-along and presentations. The first event, on Saturday, features a talk by Dr Laura Jarvis of Tayside Menopause Clinic, who will shed light on symptoms and ways of managing them.

This will be followed by a session with singer-songwriter Debra Salem.

Dr Jarvis, who specialises in sexual and reproductive health, said: “In the 15 years I have been involved in the Tayside Menopause Clinic, we are certainly seeing more referrals which signifies women are in search of more advice.

“Although we are generally seeing the more complex cases, we applaud the Menopause Café for opening up the subject more widely and encouraging dialogue amongst men and women.”

She said: “Normalising the subject will make a huge difference to the way the menopause is managed and the festival will play a positive role in that.

“In the past, some women felt they couldn’t talk about the menopause, and that they just had to get on with it but now, with women living longer and many of us holding down demanding jobs, we are starting to realise we have a right to a better quality, and we should do our utmost to be informed and take positive steps to improve our wellbeing.”

The festival will continue with a talk exploring mental and physical wellbeing on Saturday March 24, plus more events in April and May.

The café project which inspired the festival was partly organised by Rachel Weiss, of sponsors Rowan Consultancy. She said: “Following the success of last year’s events, we began to realise that there was a real need for wider discussion on the menopause and how to best manage it.”

Normalising the subject will make ahuge difference to the way the menopause is managed and the festival will play a positive role in that. DR LAURA JARVIS

Picture: Andrew Cawley. Rachel Weiss, one of the organisers of last year’s Menopause Café, which took place in Perth.