Youth-led organisation makes all the difference

Madilonga Mulaudzi and Lucia Rambau, two young ladies from Madombidzha Village, have a dream to keep on making positive changes in local communities through their non-profit organisation, called Western Movement Foundation.

Since the organisation’s inception in January 2017, it has helped 231 pupils from the surrounding Sinthumule schools with career-related advice and the distribution of personal hygiene items, such as sanitary towels.

“We will at no point rest until all our young boys and girls are cared for and happy in their youthful lives,” said Mulaudzi. “It is not only the duty of immediate guardians and teachers to ensure that learners are happy. That is why we visit schools on a regular basis to engage learners on topics of personal welfare.”

Western Movement Foundation also has informative talks with middle-primary girls who have just started or are soon to start their periods. “We guide them on how to use the sanitary towels, what happens if they stain themselves, how to bath if they have their periods and how to wrap and throw away their used sanitary towels,” Rambau added.

She said that “period shame” had negative mental effects as well, as it disempowered young women in a way, causing them to feel embarrassed about a perfectly normal biological process taking place in their bodies. “Poor menstrual hygiene can cause physical health risks and has been linked to reproductive and urinary tract infections, and cultural shame attached to menstruation and a shortage of resources stop our young women from going to school every day,” she said.

Mulaudzi further said that they had come to the realisation that most girls dropped out and even missed school, not simply because they feared being teased by their classmates if they showed stains from their periods, but because they had not been properly educated about it, and their need for safe and clean facilities was not prioritised.

In order to raise funds to actualise their outreach activities, Western Movement Foundation hosts annual colour fun walks. “We must say, our community supported us since day one,” Rambau said. “We take pride in the Sinthumule community and other sponsorships that we receive from the surrounding communities. We get teachers from different schools calling us when they ran out of sanitary towels, and then we make sure we deliver on time. This is thanks to our dear sponsors who back us.”

Date:04 July 2021

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

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