KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Hy­giene is not a lux­u­ry. It’s a right. In a space where ac­cess to ba­sic hy­giene can de­fine a per­son’s dig­ni­ty, one woman is on a mis­sion to make a cul­tur­al shift in how Trinidad and To­ba­go thinks about clean­li­ness, care, and com­mu­ni­ty.

Busi­ness­woman, phil­an­thropist and well­ness ad­vo­cate Leela Ram­s­ingh isn’t just tack­ling taboo, she wants to change the hy­giene cul­ture in Trinidad and To­ba­go while show­ing what it means to live with pur­pose and in ser­vice of oth­ers.

With a post­grad­u­ate diplo­ma and an MBA from Hen­ley Busi­ness School, Uni­ver­si­ty of Read­ing, Ram­s­ingh has over 25 years of ex­pe­ri­ence in the hy­giene in­dus­try. She was award­ed an Hon­orary Doc­tor­ate in Hu­man­i­tar­i­an­ism by the Glob­al In­ter­na­tion­al Al­liance in recog­ni­tion of her ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice to so­ci­ety, par­tic­u­lar­ly her work in ad­vo­cat­ing for women’s health, ed­u­ca­tion, and em­pow­er­ment.

Her work fo­cus­es on is­sues of gen­der equal­i­ty, men­stru­al hy­giene, and so­cial jus­tice, with a strong em­pha­sis on com­mu­ni­ty-based so­lu­tions.

Her com­pa­ny, LSA Health­care Ser­vices Lim­it­ed, is the of­fi­cial ex­clu­sive part­ner of Men­stru­al Hy­giene (MH) Day, led by the Ger­man NGO WASH Unit­ed–To­ward a #Pe­ri­od­Friend­ly­World–which will be ob­served on May 28. Pe­ri­od pover­ty is the lack of ac­cess to men­stru­al hy­giene prod­ucts.

She said, “Pe­ri­od pover­ty refers to the lack of ac­cess to men­stru­al prod­ucts, hy­giene fa­cil­i­ties, and ed­u­ca­tion, of­ten due to fi­nan­cial con­straints or cul­tur­al stig­ma, im­pact­ing in­di­vid­u­als’ abil­i­ty to man­age their pe­ri­ods with dig­ni­ty and safe­ty. It can lead to health risks, missed school or work, and oth­er neg­a­tive con­se­quences.”

Ram­s­ingh ex­plained that pe­ri­od pover­ty “can hap­pen with the un­der­priv­i­leged and un­der­served com­mu­ni­ties and even in the work­places.”

She added, “Pe­ri­od pover­ty can be when you are at your work­place and you have an emer­gency cy­cle and you have noth­ing to use. The word pover­ty does not mean that some­one can­not af­ford the prod­uct; it’s just that you don’t have the items at the time.”

Ram­s­ingh said, “With decades of ex­pe­ri­ence in the hy­giene in­dus­try, we wit­nessed the pro­found ef­fects of pe­ri­od pover­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools and un­der­served com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try.

“We recog­nised the ur­gency to act and formed an al­liance with WASH Unit­ed to ex­pand our im­pact and place Trinidad and To­ba­go firm­ly on the glob­al map in the fight against pe­ri­od pover­ty.

“We are proud to sup­port this glob­al ef­fort led by WASH Unit­ed to change the cul­ture of hy­giene.”

A 2023 Guardian news­pa­per re­port on pe­ri­od pover­ty re­vealed that in rur­al ar­eas and even in the cap­i­tal of Port-of-Spain, schools faced chal­lenges with their plumb­ing be­cause many girls did not have ac­cess to fem­i­nine prod­ucts and were us­ing cloth for san­i­tary nap­kins, re­sult­ing in clogged sys­tems.

Ram­s­ingh said many schools in” T&T do not have fa­cil­i­ties for the young men­stru­at­ing girls.

“In 2023, we did a sur­vey of schools from Mor­vant to D’Abadie, and out of that, on­ly sev­en per cent had fa­cil­i­ties for men­stru­at­ing girls,” she added.

“The bins, soap and a func­tion­ing toi­let are what we call un­der MHD; we call it pe­ri­od-friend­ly toi­lets. Girls are not be­ing ed­u­cat­ed at home, and we would think that in this day and age, moth­ers should be ed­u­cat­ing the girls about pe­ri­ods. Some of the girls come to school with­out san­i­tary pads; the prin­ci­pals will tell us about it, as they don’t have a san­i­tary pad to use.

“We did a cou­ple of work­shops, and we con­tin­ue to do this be­cause we recog­nise there is a need for it.”

Ram­s­ingh has al­so ob­served that there are girls who be­gin the men­stru­al cy­cle as ear­ly as eight years old.

“We start­ed go­ing to the schools; some­times we would take a doc­tor or nurse with us to ed­u­cate the girls,” said Ram­s­ingh.

“How to wash your hands be­fore and af­ter, what to ex­pect at a cer­tain age as pu­ber­ty sets in. There are girls as young as eight and nine who are hav­ing a cy­cle, and ap­par­ent­ly, they are scared to even dis­cuss it at home, so they go to the school in their con­di­tion. We found this hap­pen­ing in a cou­ple schools, and it is re­al­ly sad.”

The fem­i­nine hy­giene ad­vo­cate is call­ing on par­ents and guardians to have the much-need­ed dis­cus­sion with their young girls.

“It is im­por­tant for par­ents and guardians to have these chats with your chil­dren,” she high­light­ed.

“I want to be­lieve that they be­lieve the men­stru­al cy­cle would be­gin at 12 or 13, but things have changed now. We did a ses­sion at Sa­cred Heart Girls’ last year, and when we asked how many girls were hav­ing their cy­cles, there were Stan­dard 3s rais­ing their hands.”

A Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) on Hu­man Rights, Equal­i­ty, and Di­ver­si­ty sur­vey con­duct­ed on 1,930 mem­bers of the pub­lic in 2023 found that 93.4 per cent of re­spon­dents did not be­lieve that pe­ri­od prod­ucts were af­ford­able.

Sim­i­lar­ly, in 2021 the Safe Cy­cle re­port by Fem­i­nitt Caribbean stat­ed that 51.5 per cent of re­spon­dents found pe­ri­od prod­ucts were not af­ford­able, 39.9 per cent found them sort of af­ford­able, and on­ly 8.6 per cent agreed that they were af­ford­able.

On MHD, Ram­s­ingh and her team will con­tin­ue build­ing on the work they have been do­ing.

“Our ap­proach al­so in­cludes the dis­tri­b­u­tion of san­i­tary nap­kins,” she said.

“We’ve con­duct­ed out­reach to mar­gin­alised groups via NGOs and com­mu­ni­ty groups, in­clud­ing mi­grant com­mu­ni­ties in Ce­dros, St Jude’s Girls’ Home, and The Shel­ter, and the un­der­served women and girls.

“We’ve al­so launched an ini­tia­tive called ‘Pads on a Roll”, emer­gency pad dis­pensers, which was first in­tro­duced at Holy Faith Con­vent, Cou­va.

“To date, our pro­grammes have pos­i­tive­ly im­pact­ed over 10,000 in­di­vid­u­als, from class­rooms and com­mu­ni­ties to art com­pe­ti­tions, walks for aware­ness, and dis­as­ter re­lief ef­forts.”

Ram­s­ingh is re­it­er­at­ing her call to state en­ter­pris­es and cor­po­rate T&T to join this move­ment.

“Specif­i­cal­ly, we ad­vo­cate for the re­moval of tax­es and du­ties on men­stru­al prod­ucts. The pro­vi­sion of free san­i­tary prod­ucts in all pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools and the in­clu­sion of men­stru­al health in school cur­ric­u­la and pub­lic health poli­cies.

“To­geth­er, we can break the si­lence, re­move the stig­ma, and cre­ate a Trinidad and To­ba­go that is tru­ly #Pe­ri­od­Friend­ly.”

Ram­s­ingh is not on­ly an ad­vo­cate for fem­i­nine hy­giene but al­so the founder of the Share Dig­ni­ty Foun­da­tion. This char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tion ad­dress­es hy­giene pover­ty and works to re­store dig­ni­ty to in­di­vid­u­als fac­ing hard­ship or crises.

While bal­anc­ing her pro­fes­sion­al life with the roles of wife, moth­er, and men­tor, she con­tin­ues to up­hold the val­ues of ser­vant lead­er­ship.

If you are in­ter­est­ed in do­nat­ing hy­giene prod­ucts to the cause, you can reach LSA Health­care Ser­vices Lim­it­ed at 389-8153 or 356-2267.