YOUNIB United for Uteruses: Eradicating Period Poverty and Stigma in Nairobi-Kenya

After the overwhelming response to the question “How do young girls in our community manage their periods”, many asked us how they can help and donate sanitary pads to our girls?

May 28 every year is Menstrual Hygiene Day and YOUNIB, with its limited means, friends and some partners like Missio Aachen, donate and provide feminine hygiene products to YOUNIB Girls and students from Nairobi. During our activities the following 4 campaigns are observed:

TALK N BE FREE

We carry this campaign under the motto “Flowing Forward: Younib advocacy for Access to Sanitary Products”. This YOUNIB campaign, encourages girls to talk and be free about their cycles. As we donate pads, bought from our local markets, to some of our girls, we also help them deal with how they feel about themselves and their menstruation cycle. With our TALK N BE FREE program we do not only distribute, but we also make it an education program that deals with body development and discuss the relationship between pads, periods and pregnancy to schoolgirls.

HI-FIVE FOR HY-PADS (HYGIENE PADS)

We carry this campaign under the motto “YOUNIB United for Uteruses: Eradicating Period Poverty and Stigma”. This YOUNIB campaign focuses on helping our young girls and women to meet their feminine hygiene needs. Our goal is to ensure that every underprivileged girl within our reach receives hygiene pads pack so that they can attend school, university or work in comfort.

Our wish is to partner with some organizations so that they may help us to have washable and reusable sanitary wear which can be used for up to five years. With this campaign we want to educate and dispel various myths and stigmas, which we combat by hosting various talks and demonstrations to our girls during our meetings.

THE PATH TO SUB-WAY PADS

We carry this campaign under the motto “The Power of Periods: With Younib building a Brighter Future for Women and Girls”. This YOUNIB campaign is to advocate first of all a 100% cotton wool panty for girls; that is why we call it the PATH TO SUB-WAY PADS. And to avoid as much as we can panties made up of nylon. If possible with partners we can benefit from the 100% cotton wool bikini panty, which has washable pads attached to it. This campaign is design to help to spread the awareness of feminine hygiene products needed in our community around our county of Nairobi.

Y- S.D. FOR G (YOUNIB SANITARY DRIVE FOR GIRLS)

We carry this campaign under the motto “Period Pride: Creating a Supportive Community for Menstruators”. This YOUNIB campaign is created to encourage friends of YOUNIB and women and all social media followers of YOUNIB to donate sanitary “comfort packs” wherever they may be and whenever they want to. By this our aim is to make a difference and engage with ladies, friends and social media followers to pay it forward and help those in need.