Indian-origin teen wins social progress ‘Oscar’ for her #FreePeriods campaign
18-year-old Amika George won one of the three Goalkeepers Global Goals Awards, popularly known as the Oscars for social progress for her #FreePeriods campaign. Her #FreePeriods campaign brought her granddad and 2,000 other protestors on Downing Street in the UK in December 2017 to demand free sanitary products for poor girls in school. The other awards at the ceremony in New York on Tuesday night went to Nadia Murad, 24, a Yazidi survivor of Islamic State (IS) genocide in Iraq, and Dysmus Kisilu, 28, whose renewable energy solutions increased yields of small farmers in Kenya by 150%. French president Emmanuel Macron, women and children’s rights activist Graça Machel, writer-activist Richard Curtis, musician King Kaka, and actor Stephen Fry were among the speakers this year. Indian-origin George has lived all her life in the UK, where her grandparents moved from Kerala. “It’s a taboo subject in every country, we are punished for bleeding. I started my campaign in April 2017 after watching a news report about how girls missed school because they can’t afford pads and tampons. One in 10 girls in the UK can’t afford sanitary napkins, shows a study by Plan International. I had never suffered period poverty, I was shocked it was happening in the UK. Girls were using newspapers, socks, old newspaper... I was horrified that the government wasn’t acting on it,” said George. “It was cold, a few days before Christmas, and I was there with my grandpa, brother and mum and dad wondering whether anyone would turn up at all. But it was amazing, thousands of girls and boys showed up,” she said. “I’ve never done something this big, the enthusiasm among young people through the campaign was amazing,” said George, who joins Cambridge University to study history on Saturday. “All women have periods, across countries and religions, it shouldn’t keep them from school or affect their lives for five days every month,” she said. “These awards celebrate the best of what we do. Progress is absolutely happening but it is not inevitable and this year’s big focus is on youth and the innovations that can change things in communities,” said Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which published the Goalkeepers report last week that said one billion people have come out of poverty since 2000, but rapid population growth in the world’s poorest countries threaten to slow or even reverse the gains. -PTC News
