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In an effort to combat period poverty - which causes schoolgirls to skip classes due to a lack of sanitary pads - Kotex has donated sanitary towels to Fairsand Primary School in Johannesburg under their new school programme, Stay YOUnique.
Fairsand Primary School is one of numerous schools in Johannesburg that will be receiving sanitary towels from Korex.
Speaking to City Press, the marketing director of Kotex, Morné van Emmenes, said a period should not stand in the way of progress.
Van Emmenes also said the schools that will be receiving the donations are the middle-income and low-income schools, as they realised that most of their consumers are from those income brackets, and the most vulnerable as girls miss more school days than boys and that affects their ways of success in the future.
Schoolgirls in grade 4 to 7 received the sanitary pads.
READ: Hygiene brand marks International Day of the Girl Child by fighting period poverty and stigma
He also added that Kotex has partnered with the department of basic education and the department of health to ensure that the sanitary towels get to school girls.
The brand ambassador of Kotex, Nosipho Mhlanga, educated the young girls on how to put on the sanitary pads and debunking some of the myths about menstruation.
She said there are some girls who get teased because they get their periods and experience puberty at an early age, and they should start supporting each other.
Mhlanga said:
Van Emmenes said:
“We started partnering with Dove, so they also have a similar programme - talking about girls’ confidence, self-esteem and mental health - and there is a really good linkage between those two which address similar things,” Van Emmenes said.
He added that working with such companies is one of the ways to expand in fighting period poverty as they are also educating their staff by having a menstrual curriculum as their work assessment.
READ: Thuli Madonsela | Can bras for girls buy us peace?
