Let’s talk a bit louder!
It’s not often that we promote a free, all-day celebration that includes fun workshops and an amazing concert for a cause that promotes hygiene and privacy – but in a way that’s what’s happening in Kenya’s Kericho County on 26 May (we'll announce the venue soon!).
Girls and women around the world are still held back from fulfilling their educational and workplace potential because they don't have the necessary support to manage their menstruation in a safe, hygienic and discreet way. That’s a vast number of students and workers – and consumers and helpers – simply stopped in their tracks by something that can be managed with ease. It’s sometimes called period poverty.
Brighter Communities Worldwide has been raising awareness about this issue in Kenya – and promoting easy, effective and cheap menstrual management – for many years. And things are changing. More people are talking and more is being done.
Talking is working. So we're all going to talk a bit louder. Two days before the official Menstrual Hygiene Day – which takes place on 28 May – Kenya’s Kericho County will be home to a free, all-day celebration that includes workshops for girls and boys about menstrual hygiene management and a concert, both of which will promote the global menstrual hygiene campaigns that are being highlighted on Menstrual Hygiene Day.
We’ve called the campaign that inspires this celebration Nothing Will Stop ME (www.nothingwillstop.me). Pop legend Suzanne Gachukia-Opembe HSC, is helping Brighter Communities Worldwide put together some of East Africa’s hottest DJs and bands for a Nothing Will Stop ME free concert; she’s even produced a song for the event. Money will be raised, and information shared, but most of all we’ll be celebrating the amazing potential of Kenya’s young women and girls.
So join us or, wherever you are, try to spread the word. And perhaps one day we can celebrate not a fight against period poverty but an end to it.