Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Fem­i­nitt Caribbean is an NGO in T&T seek­ing to rad­i­cal­ly trans­form struc­tures that breed in­equal­i­ty in T&T while bridg­ing the so­cio-eco­nom­ic gaps in com­mu­ni­ties through ed­u­ca­tion and ad­vo­ca­cy.

Their Safe Cy­cle pro­gramme was launched in Au­gust 2020 and has three main com­po­nents: Health Ed­u­ca­tion, Ser­vice De­liv­ery and the Safe Cy­cle Re­port. These three work in tan­dem to pro­vide men­stru­al prod­ucts to those in need, dis­sem­i­nate in­for­ma­tion about men­stru­al health and eq­ui­ty, pro­mote the en­gage­ment of men and boys in the dis­course of fe­male needs, and per­form da­ta col­lec­tion that sup­ports women’s ac­cess to gy­nae­co­log­i­cal health.

Un­der this Safe Cy­cle pro­gramme, they launched the “Break the Stig­ma, Pass the Pad” cam­paign around In­ter­na­tion­al Youth Day this year (Au­gust 12) to con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate for the end­ing of pe­ri­od pover­ty, es­pe­cial­ly where young women are con­cerned.

“Break the Stig­ma, Pass the Pad” is an im­por­tant cam­paign aim­ing to dis­man­tle the so­ci­etal taboos sur­round­ing men­stru­a­tion and ad­vo­cate for men­stru­al eq­ui­ty in T&T. Men­stru­a­tion, a nat­ur­al bi­o­log­i­cal process, is of­ten shroud­ed in shame and mis­in­for­ma­tion, lead­ing to sig­nif­i­cant dis­par­i­ties in ac­cess to men­stru­al prod­ucts and ed­u­ca­tion.

The cost of pur­chas­ing men­stru­al prod­ucts month­ly, es­pe­cial­ly in homes with mul­ti­ple women, can be be­yond the reach of many low­er-in­come house­holds. Of­ten times, men who do not ex­pe­ri­ence the bur­den of these costs are not aware of how it can be a fi­nan­cial strain on many women. On av­er­age, it costs women $100 (TT) to pur­chase pe­ri­od prod­ucts month­ly in T&T.

This ex­pense, com­bined with lim­it­ed ac­cess to prop­er san­i­ta­tion fa­cil­i­ties and so­ci­etal stig­ma, forces many young girls to miss school dur­ing their pe­ri­ods. Glob­al­ly, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 500 mil­lion women and girls face pe­ri­od pover­ty, high­light­ing the need for sys­temic change. Ac­cord­ing to a 2014 Unit­ed Na­tions Ed­u­ca­tion­al, Sci­en­tif­ic and Cul­tur­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion (UN­ESCO) re­port, one out of every ten men­stru­at­ing youth miss­es school dur­ing their men­stru­al cy­cle due to a lack of ac­cess to men­stru­al prod­ucts and re­sources.

Az­iza Alexan­der, a 15-year-old stu­dent from east Trinidad, speaks on the im­por­tance of this cam­paign, say­ing, “Every­one de­serves their ne­ces­si­ties. It is per­ti­nent to have ac­cess to Fem­i­nitt’s care bank, as it pro­vides me with prod­ucts for a safe men­stru­al cy­cle. Men­stru­al health ed­u­ca­tion has gone far, and I am very grate­ful.

“As a young per­son, I see the im­por­tance of hav­ing such ne­ces­si­ties reg­u­lar­ly in schools. With the aid of men­stru­al health ed­u­ca­tion and care banks, it en­ables peo­ple with the tools to recog­nise the nor­mal­i­ty of men­stru­a­tion and re­duce stig­ma. I have seen progress as aware­ness grows and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty to Safe Cy­cle care banks in­creas­es. It tru­ly shows promise.” The call to ac­tion of this cam­paign is mul­ti­fac­eted, re­quir­ing the col­lab­o­ra­tion of non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions (NGOs), pol­i­cy­mak­ers, and the pub­lic. NGOs play a piv­otal role in pro­vid­ing grass­roots sup­port and rais­ing aware­ness through com­mu­ni­ty out­reach and ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes.

Pol­i­cy­mak­ers, on the oth­er hand, are urged to im­ple­ment and en­force leg­is­la­tion that en­sures the avail­abil­i­ty and af­ford­abil­i­ty of men­stru­al prod­ucts. Pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion is al­so vi­tal; by break­ing the si­lence and ad­vo­cat­ing for men­stru­al eq­ui­ty, in­di­vid­u­als can help shift so­ci­etal at­ti­tudes and re­duce the stig­ma as­so­ci­at­ed with men­stru­a­tion.

By spot­light­ing these is­sues, Fem­i­nitt hopes to fos­ter a more in­clu­sive and sup­port­ive en­vi­ron­ment where every­one can man­age their men­stru­a­tion with dig­ni­ty. The ways that the group urges pol­i­cy­mak­ers, ed­u­ca­tors, and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers to en­cour­age change in­clude in­vest­ment in and poli­cies to sup­port the free of­fer­ing of men­stru­al prod­ucts and ed­u­ca­tion for school-aged chil­dren, aware­ness cam­paigns to high­light how pe­ri­od pover­ty can af­fect women, im­prove Wa­ter, San­i­ta­tion and Hy­giene (WASH) fa­cil­i­ties in schools to en­sure girls feel com­fort­able dur­ing their pe­ri­od, and break­ing the taboo sur­round­ing dis­cus­sions of men­stru­a­tion.

Fem­i­nitt Caribbean has been a bea­con of ad­vo­ca­cy for men­stru­al eq­ui­ty since 2020, ad­dress­ing a crit­i­cal yet of­ten over­looked is­sue in un­der­served com­mu­ni­ties.

This or­gan­i­sa­tion has not on­ly pro­vid­ed free men­stru­al prod­ucts to those in need but has al­so con­duct­ed ed­u­ca­tion­al work­shops in schools to raise aware­ness about men­stru­al health. By tack­ling the stig­ma as­so­ci­at­ed with men­stru­a­tion, Fem­i­nitt Caribbean is work­ing dili­gent­ly to en­sure that no one is left with­out the nec­es­sary re­sources and knowl­edge to man­age their men­stru­al health ef­fec­tive­ly.

Their ef­forts are set­ting the stage for a more in­clu­sive and in­formed T&T where men­stru­al health is pri­ori­tised. Through their con­tin­ued ef­forts, they con­tin­ue to pave the way for a fu­ture where men­stru­al health is uni­ver­sal­ly un­der­stood, re­spect­ed, and sup­port­ed.

To con­tact Fem­i­nitt and join the move­ment, email fem­i­nitt@gmail.com