Candice Chirwa, a gender equity advocate and founder of Curate, is reshaping how South Africa talks about periods. After getting her first period at the age of ten without prior education or support, she felt fear and isolation. Now, she’s using her experience to educate and empower others.
Through her organization Curate, Candice has worked to dismantle period stigma since 2019, bringing menstrual education workshops to schools, universities, and communities. These efforts have reached over 10,000 young people across the country.
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What Chirwa Strives to Achieve
The goal is to normalize menstruation and make it a part of everyday conversation. Chirwa makes it clear that period poverty is not just about products. It’s about access to clean sanitation, education, and healthcare. “We require non-menstruators, mostly men and boys, to be involved,” Candice explains. “And this means that we ourselves have to be open to speaking about menstrual health. And we need to ensure that there’s access to menstrual education.”
Curate’s advocacy includes initiatives like “Dads for Pads,” a campaign designed to engage men and boys in menstrual health conversations. For Candice, including all genders is essential to achieving true menstrual equity.
Corporates have taken interest in supporting menstrual health initiatives through donations and campaigns. However, Candice is candid about the challenges. “It’s just a matter of them internally finding the budgets,” she says. “That there is a commitment to ensuring that period poverty is addressed, especially within programs that target girl beneficiaries. I just find that, like I mentioned, we need to ensure that it is sustainable and it’s not just once off, and it’s not treated as a PR exercise.”
As long as period poverty exists, Chirwa says her work is far from done. With continued education, sustainable support, and inclusive dialogue, she believes South Africa can move toward a period-positive future for all.
To find out more, watch the video below:
