SINT MAARTEN (GREAT BAY) - In a school year filled with no less than six new projects, the staff of Teen Times stayed committed to their ongoing two-year Period Poverty project by donating to two additional schools last week. The chosen schools for the 2023/2024 school are the Oranje Primary School and the St. Maarten Vocational Training School.
Coordinator of Teen Times Rochelayne “Roosje” Rommy Richardson presented Oranje School officials with female hygiene products after being contacted by the school last school year to be part of the project. Together with its corporate partner Prime Distributors, Teen Times seeks to address the Period Poverty issue on St. Maarten.
Since kicking off the project in 2021, the group has received numerous requests from school and other groups that work with less fortunate young people. Period poverty, defined as, among other things, a lack of access to menstrual products, affects many women globally causing physical, mental, and emotional challenges.
Teen Times decided to raise the red flag on the issue after teachers and students disclosed that girls are attending school with make-shift items that serve as hygiene products. These included socks, napkins, torn clothes and the like. “Upon further research it was more problematic than we realized and since then we have been continuously donating to those in need,” Rommy-Richardson said. “It is a problem that nobody wants to talk about or even acknowledge,” she said.
The group raised the issue with Parliament and submitted a proposal to Parliament/the government to find a way to address the issue by, for example, making female sanitary products free at school, which is exactly what Teen Times is currently doing. “We don’t anticipate doing it forever, but we will continue as long as we can or as long as the powers-that-be do something more substantial,” Rommy-Richardson said.
On hand for the presentation at Oranje School last week were School Manager Jacqueline Joedoleksono-Gumbs and PTF President Emmanuel Mussen. Both thanked Teen Times for the contribution to the school. St. Maarten Vocational will receive its items this week.
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