Earlier in 2020 I came across Amika George, a young activist from the UK. She made it her mission (and succeeded) to urge the government to ensure free menstrual pads in all English schools. Although gender equality was a familiar concept growing up, no situation led me to think about menstrual products as a basic necessity. Maybe it’s because it was always accessible to me and the people around me, until it was not. The economical crisis indeed abolished the middle class, or any one who was able to make ends meet, leaving ¾ of the Lebanese population living in multidimensional poverty. It wasn’t easy accepting myself as nouveau pauvre. I can only imagine how many of the families and friends we know also changed their habits drastically and secretly.
I graduated a couple of days before the explosion (from the Lebanese University <3), pushing myself to believe that I can create life in a place that is dead. Like the rest of the people who were still in Lebanon a year into the crisis, I didn’t have much of a choice but to fight. The explosion turned the little optimism into depression
A close person gave me a dilemma: to stay helpless or choose one thing I can do right now. The explosion brought attention from the international community to Lebanon, shedding light on the fact that we have become the most hyperinflated country. It was a good time to start solving a growing emergency, inflated menstrual pads, and on the way get rid of the negative feelings around periods.
Unlike electricity bills, periods are a direct gender-based inequality. Yet, this discrimination affects the rest of the family and the community.
Around that same time, the Ministry of economy released a subsidized basket, meaning fixing prices of products they deemed essential. On the list: razors, dried cranberries, condensed milk, and coconut oil, among others. When asked why they didn’t fix the price of menstrual pads, “Raoul Nehme, the minister of economy and trade, said the materials used to make sanitary products would be subsidized, meaning locally-made ones could be sold at lower prices.”
I created the logo on Paint (Paint 3D, the new one, if it makes you sleep better), chose the colors and picked a title that was descriptive, that aims to normalize this bodily function, and that’s in Arabic and in the Lebanese dialect.
The initiative went viral the night it was born/launched, on the 6th of August. Tens of equally passionate and aware girls reached out. So many of them were already thinking about this issue, or living it. They just needed a spark to take action. They started collecting and distributing pads to the women in need in their own communities.
Jeyetik turned to a nation-wide sisterhood. 6 teams covered Beirut, Tripoli, South, Beqaa, Metn and Keserwan. Hi to every girl, mother, father who mobilized their friends, their neighborhood to take on this mission.
These Are For You!
