Conversations that Matter: Teaching Girls about their bodies in Haiti
As an OB/GYN and community sexual health educator for 20+ years, I am passionate about teaching girls and women about their bodies. I get to talk about things most people are uncomfortable with, and help answer questions and start conversations that really matter. In heading to Haiti again on a mission trip, I recognized a need for education and menstrual supplies — in a way that could be fun and able to be replicated. At Haiti Outreach Ministries (HOM), hundreds of girls and boys are lovingly sponsored for education, and they were very excited to join me in a pilot project to bring Be Girl education and supplies to the girls in the 7th grade class. Haiti has a very large young population, in part because of a high birthrate and shorter life expectancy. Life expectancy is 62, whereas in the USA it is 78. The World Bank estimated that the Haitian unemployment rate is 40%. For a family where food is struggle each day, purchasing disposable hygiene products for menstruation is not an option. In Haiti, this means having no menstrual supplies and missing school, or using old t-shirts, rags, sugar cane husks, and other ‘absorbent’ material if you can find it and keep it in your panties. Sanitation and disposing of pads becomes an issue as well, as landfills and trash disposal are not in existence. Trash piles, and burning trash, are as commonplace as a street sign in Port-Au-Prince.
So, before leaving for Haiti, we arranged to have a pilot project with BeGirlPanties - an innovative period panty designed specifically for low resource settings. The project also included pre- and post-use surveys translated into Creole by the educators at HOM, and a planned curriculum for a 1-hour class on puberty and sex education. All of this was planned by way of email traffic, as phone calls to/from Haiti are spotty — so some details were on the fly. The 40 pairs of uber-cute BeGirlPanties in purple and teal made their way to SC where they were packed amongst the Mission Trip medical supplies headed for Haiti Outreach Ministries with First Presbyterian Church of Spartanburg. Once we landed in Port-Au-Prince, the customs officials were somewhat flummoxed by the quantity of panties that I was carrying, alongside heavy duty bolt-cutters for construction, and medical supplies for the clinic, and decided that this was not a bag that was going to get confiscated …the panties were going to make to their destination! We got out of the airport and to the Mission without incident! (Note to self: overstuffed luggage that explodes with panties when opened is a great diversion).
The next day we met with the Superintendent of schools, and she was very happy to welcome us to her class later in the week, but she also had a surprise request for us….there had been so much conversation about the class that was going to take place for the girls, she had decided we should teach a puberty and sex ed class for the 7th grade boys! This was great, and not wanting to disappoint on our fledgling project, we did some brainstorming and realized that my colleague on the trip, a male orthopedic surgeon who has 4 daughters, would be perfect for this (if he agreed!)
That evening as we prepared for the class and got the surveys ready, panties ready, and translators ready, my Ortho colleague did whole-heartedly agree to participate without hesitation. Having taught Sex Ed to many groups, I gave him the SparkNotes version of the high points to address with puberty & sex ed for 7th grade boys, and he was ready! As we walked into our respective classes the next morning at 8:00, we were met with smiling faces, and friendly translators that were fully engaged to help us get our message across. Now, I can tell you how the girls class went, but I wish I could have been a fly on the wall of the boys class as well! The fact that there was raucous laughter coming from across the hall during the hour, and the fact that they were still talking when I was done, and laughing and asking questions, told me that it had been a success with the boys!
As for my class, they were the best! Not only did the girls ask questions, and interact with me through the awesome translator, they really loved the panties and were so excited about having them for themselves. We discussed all the changes that happen during puberty, and allowed them to ask questions about puberty, sex, and menstruation — they had lots of questions about how girls experience periods in the United States. We gave each of the girls her own BeGirlPanties, and the baseline survey (in Creole) to complete about their experience of menstruation so far. We showed them how the BeGirlPanties work, the cool mesh pocket, and how the blue pads are replaceable inside the panties. As a finale, the girls asked me one last question — they asked me to sing our national anthem for them, as they had never heard it. I think I got all the words right acapella -first verse only, of course.
Some of the panties that were left over went to a few of young women who were working for the school. They were happy and surprised to be included, and said they would help the younger girls remember how to use them. They wanted to know when we could come back. And teach another class, this time for the older girls too…… The completed surveys were returned to me at the end of the week, and some of the comments made me doubly glad that we had started this effort. Comments like ‘I feel ashamed when I have my period’, “I don’t want to go to school when I have my period’. The post-use surveys will go out to the girls in 3–4 months, and I hope that we will see how much they enjoyed having the BeGirlPanties as a resource! Thank you to the willingness of Be Girl and HOM to share in this endeavor on behalf of the girls!
Written by Dr. Dawn Bingham and shared as part of Be Girl’s EmpowerBank Program.
