What do leaves, newspaper and soil have in common? The answer is not gardening! These items are commonly used by girls in rural and poor households as…
These items are commonly used as substitutes for sanitary pads. Young girls and women often struggle to live normal lives during that time of the month because they do not have access to free or affordable sanitary wear.
Good Things Guy received a desk drop/press drop that was really sobering. The package contained three boxes of “Never Unsanitary Pads” and within each box were different types of unsanitary items used by girls in South Africa.
In box 1, there are 10 bags of green leaves, these are commonly used by girls and exposes them to potentially harmful parasites. Box 2 contains 10 bags of sand which can cause irritation and serious discomfort and infection. The final box has 10 bags of newspaper which contains harmful chemicals. These are some of the drastic measures that girls and women in rural and poor households take to cope with that one week a month.
‘One School At A Time’ to wanted to get help to combat this issue and their drastic press drop was designed to create a real conversation.
One School At A Time (OSAAT) is a registered non-profit organisation that uses education as a solution to South Africa’s socio-economic challenges. One of the issues they want to combat is young girls missing school because of a natural part of life. If girls miss school, it doesn’t only affect their potential, it affects the country’s potential as well.
“Always, South Africa’s leading feminine hygiene product, has a programme called ‘Always Keeping Girls in School’. The programme provides donations of sanitary pads, as well as empowering educational talks on feminine hygiene and puberty”
OSAAT emailed Always and asked them to bring their programme to the Itirele-Zenzele High School in Diepsloot, Johannesburg. OSAAT runs a few projects at the school and saw the need amongst the young ladies for this beneficial programme. To grab the big brands’ attention, the ‘Never’ brand was created using the exact packaging as ‘Always’.
All visuals on the packaging were the same only the wording was changed to highlight the unsanitary, unhygienic and unabsorbent nature of the alternatives.
The creative but saddening twist on the product worked and Always agreed to launch their programme at the High School. The girls at the school will now be supported by the programme and receive annual talks about issues relating to the periods and staying in school.
See their packaging below. To get involved with OSAAT check out their website here.
Click on the image below to enlarge and read the full text.
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