D.A.R.E is trying to give girl children their dignity back Photo D.A.R.E
South Africa – Imagine being a 15-year-old girl, living alone. Fending for yourself. Your mother works in another province and your father is in prison. Alone, you follow the normal patterns a young girl would in getting to and from school.
Imagine being 15 and not having enough money to buy food and sanitary pads. Realising you have your period, at school, after soiling your uniform and having your fellow students gawk and laugh at you. Instead of skipping school the next day your resourceful nature motivates you to use toilet paper as a makeshift sanitary pad. And then for the product of your perseverance to betray you by falling to the ground to fits of laughter.
Some don’t have to imagine it, they’ve lived through it.
It is something that strips a person of their dignity and very hard to recover from as a child. This is what Linda Shezi, Supreme Queen Global Earth Africa semi-finalist 2022, has survived. Her story, heart breaking as it is, is not unique. Many girls in South Africa can relate. They have and currently are suffering through the same hardships that Shezi experienced in her teenage years.
Period poverty remains a significant problem in the country. Up to seven million girls do not have access or cannot afford to buy sanitary products. However, organisations like Developing Ambitious Resilient Entrepreneurs (D.A.R.E) are aiming to end period poverty in the country.
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Challenges faced by D.A.R.E
D.A.R.E is a South African non-profit organisation that seeks to educate and empower young girls. One of their aims is to improve access to sanitary products and menstrual health education. Mooniba Bhyat, Founder of D.A.R.E, decided to start the organisation after visiting outlying areas in South Africa and seeing the huge need for empowerment and the lack of access to sanitary pads. One of the challenges she has come across is people of affluence not understanding how washable pads make a rural child’s life much easier.
“The first question is from a hygienic point of view … When you work in rural areas or poor areas, for a young girl child who can afford disposable pads, if you give her washable pads, it’s amazing how they actually do [wash it and keep it clean]. They take care of those pack of pads. They make sure they wash it, they reuse it because they know that’s one of the options they have to finish off their high school education.”
Another challenge Bhyat faces is having to explain to people the importance of providing sanitary pads to girls and getting them onboard with the project. Most people believe it is more important to feed a family than distribute pads to them. Bhyat firmly believes sanitary pads are just as important because not only are they a necessity for a girl, but it helps them to finish their education in school.
“If we’re wanting our young girl children to be educated, to finish off high school and be able to take courses or go to university and get a degree, the important thing is to have those sanitary pads. That is actually fundamental in terms of her needs and necessities in a growing young child.”
Shezi backed Bhyat and also firmly believes that sanitary pads are just as important as feeding a family. Being hungry affects how you do things, but it does not put you to shame.
“If I were to go back in time when I was 15, with my experience and if somebody gave me an option between giving me food or giving me a pad, I would definitely have preferred a pad. With a pad I could still go to school, still keep my dignity.”
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The impact of washable sanitary pads
What might seem like a small act in the eyes of others, handing out washable sanitary pads has made the lives of these girl children so much easier. Bhyat explained how she is often celebrated by the girl children when she goes back to see them. They often tell her how much easier it has become to go to school knowing they don’t have to worry about getting their periods. Being afforded this dignity they once were stripped of.
“To go back the next year and when they come up and they meet you and they greet you and they thank you. That was the best gift we’ve ever received. [They tell me] We can actually use these pads, we come to school, we’re writing exams, we’re not ashamed and we have dignity.”
The organisation also hands out sanitary pads to young women who attend university or who are in a working environment and can’t afford pads, said Bhyat.
“I think for me the impact is just knowing that our pads are being used and it gives them hope and the dignity to have a better future.”
Keeping the organisation running
D.A.R.E is a fundamentally important organisation for South Africa. Running an organisation like this requires a lot of helping hands, donors and ambassadors. Having people like Shezi speak about their experiences will only help to stop the cycle of being embarrassed, Bhyat. It is important to start a dialogue but also to educate people on the topic.
“We do a huge amount of menstrual health education when we go into schools. We’re always looking for volunteers and funders that can support and assist us. Funds is the one way where they come in and help us with funding, but the very same funders could become our volunteers. The more women we have out there as our soldiers, going to schools, going to corporations, going to organisations talking about this and helping us make people more aware of what the issues are, we will definitely get up to where we want to be.”
Since Covid, Bhyat has set up 12 skill centres across different provinces in South Africa that employ a number of people. They work in tandem with communities and the wish is to make period poverty a thing of the past.
