‘Sani Sistas’ of Zululand
Zululand Business Woman Association joins sanitary campaign
A TASK team of the Zululand Business Woman Association has started a campaign to provide young ladies with a five-year pack of sanitary towels with a view to empower the future businesswomen of Zululand.
‘The concept provides an opportunity for women to adopt and pledge their support by providing one young lady with one bag of reusable sanitary towels, thereby becoming her ‘Sanitary Sista,’ said Zululand Business Woman Association Branch Coordinator Tracy Steenkamp.
‘The bag consists of three pairs of underwear and seven washable sanitary towels. These bags cost R220 each and a pack will last a young lady for five years,’ she explained.
According to a survey conducted in 2010 by Stats SA, at least 60% of South African girls and women cannot afford to purchase any form of sanitary protection.
As a consequence, young girls may lose up to 50 days of schooling per year in an already pressurised education system.
‘Not only are days lost, but many of the youngsters resort to unhygienic and diverse methods to keep clean, ranging from using old and dirty pieces of cloth and rags to blankets, tissues, newspapers and even grass. Or, they just remain indoors to contain the menstrual flow,’ said Steemkamp.
‘The lack of proper sanitation and running water, combined with the unhygienic methods, often create the ideal environment for infections to set in and a vicious cycle begins,’ she said.
A project originally initiated in 2010 by the SABC in collaboration with Stats SA dubbed, ‘Women’s Month’, was aimed at the collection of sanitary towels for indigent school girls and young women. This initiative was aired on Metro FM and caught the attention of a young woman, Lucia Mtshake, with a passion for empowering other young women.
At the time, Mtshake was studying and about to complete her practical studies as a student teacher at a local school where she requested permission to launch a similar campaign at the school believing, that as an aspiring teacher, a young woman’s menstrual cycle was potentially creating a barrier to education.
