Miss

My name is Florence Kayungwa from Zimbabwe. I grew up in a small village in Hurungwe. I experienced my first period when I was in form 2 but I didn't know what it was. It was during accounts lesson and I felt like I was peeing but I wasn't. I spoiled the desk and I screamed after seeing the blood. My teacher shouted and humiliated me in front of the entire classroom. He instructed the guys to throw the desk outside because it was dirty and unclean because period blood is unclean and it's not supposed to be seen. People at my school humiliated me to an extent that I couldn't go to school. I then changed school and went to Matau High school thuts when I finished my high school studies. I met a powerful woman by the name Dr Tererai Trent during a girl's talk lesson. She asked an important question "what breaks your heart? I reflected in my life and I picked that I suffered period poverty and shame. The next question was what are you doing about it? I went to university contemplating on that one. When I was part four I just work up one day and said I need to do something so that girls will not miss school because of period poverty. I started to fundraise for sanitary pads. I met other girls from Oklahoma state University who volunteer to help me. We managed to raise pads. I partnered with another organization called chengetai and we teach girls how to hand sew their reusable pads so as to make the initiative more sustainable. So now we providing disposable pads that we call emergency pads, we also provide reusable washable pads and also teach them to hand sew.