Flowers of Kayamandi versie 1

Flowers of Kayamandi Personal Period Care

Manon Barendse Graduation project 1st examiner: Bart Hengeveld 2nd examiner: Tilde Bekker

Introduction

Openess about sexuality In March, there was ‘de week van de Lentekriebels’, organised by Rutgers, an initiative to support and guide schools and parents in the Netherlands to talk about sexuality with their children. The aim of the whole week was to learn children to ask questions about sexuality, to develop their norms & values, to make them defensible and to learn them how to interact with one another with respect.

A coincidence, because we were almost trying to do the same, but then in Kayamandi, an impoverished township in South Africa; an environment with high rates of rape, a booming HIV epidemy and lots of teenage pregnancies.

Like in the Netherlands, parents and teenagers in South-Africa consider the conversation about sexuality often as awkward and negative and therefore it often gets completely avoided. ... Because it is hard to find the right time, because words like vagina and menstruation have to be said out loud and, frequently, because we do not understand half of it.

Like Rutgers, we thought it was time for action!

This project is about how design can support to share the understanding of being a woman in a joyful and positive way with the generation under/above you. The report contains my journey to a possible answer.

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Useful bits and pieces before the journey starts

1. I write a lot about ladies, mamma’s & women. They basically mean all the same: the female caregiver in Kayamandi.

2. There is a lot of ‘we’, because I did this project as part of Happy Healthy Design.

Though, all the decisions for Flowers of Kayamandi are made by or approved by me.

3. Sexuality is a word with many connotations. With this project I hope to make clear that sexuality is far more than porn, sex and being cheeky.

4. Check our instagram! It if full of interesting updates about our project (instagram/happyhealthydesign/)

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Content Introduction

2

Flowers Of Kayamandi

8

Happy Healthy Design

16

Manon as Designer

18

Methodology

20

Reflexivity

48

Social Need

54

Exploratory Research

74

Ideating

82

Co-Creation

104

Testing

126

Service Strategy

144

Practicalities

158

References

170

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Flowers of Kayamandi Personal Period Care

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Flowers of Kayamandi Personal Period Care

Flowers of Kayamandi is a service that offers support for female caregivers in the township of Kayamandi, South-Africa, to be more open, confident and knowledgeable when talking about female sexuality with their daughters, in order to reduce contextual and psychosocial deprivation experienced by menstruating girls and women in resource-poor settings.

We make soap with mamma’s in a township of South-Africa to support them in the conversation with their daughters about femininity, sexuality & periods.

This conversation is very important, because the narratives that caregivers use and how they talk about menstruation and sexuality could significantly influence girls’ experiences of their own bodies, menarche & menstruation. ( Kissling, 1996) In the townships in South Africa girls’ sexuality is framed as dangerous and a risk for pregnancy. (Martin, 1996, Shefer, 1999) (You are now a woman, and this means that there is something you must NOT do” (Bronvin Van Wyxk, 2015).

These messages of danger and possible victimisation could evoke confusion for girls and fail to empower them for sexual negotiation. (Shefer, 1999) Living in an environment with high risks on HIV/AIDS, illegal abortions, teenage pregnancies and a lot of gender violence, powerful sexual negotiation is an essential skill for young women.

With Flowers of Kayamandi we support female caregivers to guide, prepare, inform and share with their daughters in a more positive and open manner. The personal period soap we make is a tool in our workshops, a conversation starter and a carrier of knowledge. Instead of focussing on the biological and technical management part, our chore value/emphasis is on sharing experiences and taking extra care of yourself and others.

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The design The service consists out of a workshop and factory in Kayamandi, and a digital platform.

The workshops consist out of the sharing of experiences, the equipment of knowledge, communication skills and ‘being in control of your own body’.

We are using the process of making a soap as creative guiding tool in the workshops. The soap as endresult can also serve as a very personal, meaningful and functional menarche ritual.

In the workshops, we are making soap with a mixture of local ingredients that is based on daughters’ personal period symptoms, which female caregivers get to know by various exercises in discussing their menstruation matters/experiences with their daughters. Once the soap is cured, the female caregivers will take the soap (and personal information) home and give it to their daughter as some kind of positive and novel menarche ritual: so she can spoil herself when she needs it the most :).

Flowers of Kayamandi includes a digital platform as well, in which we inform the rest of the world about the project, offer a digital mini workshop in which mothers & daughters in the Netherlands can compose and purchase their own personal period soap. All natural, no chemicals, celebrating feminity and helping sissies in Kayamandi as well!

This soap will be made by female ambassadors of the Flowers of Kayamandi program in our little soap factory. They are skilled soapmakers and are the promoters of openess about feminity & menstruation in the community In this way, these women do not only receive the soap as a tool, but they also the opportunity to produce the soap, earn money and continue carrying the project.

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Flowers of Kayamandi Personal Period Care

Produc rest of

Product has to be designed in such a waythat it conveys the same meaning to the rest of the world

Female Caregivers

Equipment of knowledge through the making of meaningful tangible products

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WWW.

ct will also be sold to the the community/society/world

Turn over from the sales will be invested in the project in Kayamandi again

The acquirement of knowledge through receiving a meaningful tangible product.

Daughters

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Flowers of Kayamandi Personal Period Care

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Why (bars of) soap?

In our workshop sessions the majority of women shared that they feel like a woman when they can take care of their own and their childrens bodies. To look good and healthy. They were also much more comfortable and positive talking about sharing how to take care of their bodies during menstruation, than sharing things about menstruation directly (that often lead to thoughts about danger, sex and pregnancy). So, a great starting focus to explore and wrap the conversation between mothers and daughters around.

Furthermore, bars of soap are being used in every household in Kayamandi.

Girls even have a special one that is only used when menstruating. Both to wash their bodies and to wash their panties with. Within our workshops and soap process, we take the opportunity to tell our ladies that it is not healthy to wash female private parts with soap - but that they are allowed and should take extra care for their own or their daughters bodies in times when it is raining red drops.

In our context, soap just seemed like the perfect (& functional) conversation starter and messenger about experiencing menstruation. And! it has totally nothing to do with sex, HIV & babies.

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Flowers of Kayamandi Personal Period Care

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Happy Healthy Design

Tessa, Joes and I have teamed up as Happy Healthy Design. Three girls with the same passion - to create social impact - , but all with a slightly different perspective and approach.

We are doing projects in the context of sexuality, which is a very socially and culturally embedded subject all over the world. Mostly, the contexts of our projects are like Sanders & Stappers (2014) describe perfectly as *contexts one does not generally have preconceived notions of the outcome since determination of the form of the outcome is part of the challenge*. Hence, we value to have many creative moments with all our stakeholders to get to know their needs and values as well as gaining empathy. Honest sharing, from individual to individual.

In comparison to a lot of pure academic social research, we distinguish ourselves with a fresh approach to explore fizzy, uncertain activities. We as designers are trained to make necessary decisions in the absence of knowledge.

We don’t necessarily need a proven hypothesis to start doing & creating - the latter is actually also a way to generate knowledge.

This doesn’t mean that we start like headless chickens, in contrary, mapping and analysing of the cultural and social context (multicultural understanding/socio cultural awareness) is the foundational activity, hence basis of all our projects.

We always try to treat our participants with respect and understanding and to never deceive them.

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As ‘our’ sexuologist Melanie van der Heijden argues, we as designers are taking a novel approach to the world of sexuality. Instead of focussing on the biological & technical aspects, we are searching for solutions that are from the human behind it. How she feels, experiences and understands.

The use of creative tools is indispensable for us, because it activates all kinds of knowledge and emotions under the surface. Especially with a subject as delicate as sexuality and menstruation, it is can be difficult to ask for expressions in words. In those moments, creative tools show their value as icebreakers, energizer & comforting.

Flowers of Kayamandi is a graduation project of my hand, sprouted out of Tessa her research and with some amazing input/output from Joes.

Joes her focus was on the creation of a context sensitive workshop, a concept that fits seamlessly in the service of Flowers of Kayamandi.

“The great challenge of twenty-first century design is mastering ecological and social design”

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(Mulgan, 2011).

Manon as Designer.

With a background in Human Geography and a huge curiosity in other perspectives than my own, you have probably already guessed that I am naturally a people researcher. For me, the most challenging and fullfilling projects are the ones in which I can submerge myself in other worlds, listen to people, try to connect all the dots and use that as foundation of design.

I recognize myself in the quote of Leif Steven Verdu-Isachsen (head of operation, Design without Borders) [1] that designers ‘are attracted to the extremes of society because this is where the norms break down and the inspiration for better solutions is most likely to come from’. Flowers of Kayamandi is a perfect example with such an extreme context, namely one with a powerful stigmatization about sexuality in combination with a continuous spread of HIV and teenage pregnancies. A place where a fitting and purposeful design intervention can make an enormous impact.

In my vision, designers are not only the people who try to understand, but also the ones that create products that help other people understand and comprehend the world or themselves better. Social, cultural, economic and environmental trends do not move parralel to each other; they move criss cross, one faster than the other. The result is often confusion - and that is where our job starts.

Due to my experience I am comfortable working with social theories, challenging the design process with how such theories can provide inspiration and meaningful interactions between multiple people. But also targeting design outcomes for the individual, providing meaning at the point of use.

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I believe in the creation of simple solutions, either as objects or complete systems that are based on skills and knowledge people can add to and inherit. As a designer I try to ensure form always follows meaning, going one step deeper than function and leaving meaningful connections behind.

For me, an design approach is guiding framework that directs and structures the design journey.

design for

UNDERSTANDING Design should be simple and easy to understand

Design should not ask for a lot of extra effort

Make sexual health education light, playful and positive

Integrate sexual health education in people their day to day life

Design is about understanding perception in order to change behavior

Capitalize on existing skillsets and people

Seperate facts from fiction - demythification

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Empower youth and their confidence by working with ‘trusted’ people in Kayamandi

In this chapter, I will tell you about the approach I have used in this journey and how I compiled it from using resources from various methods.

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Social Need

Service Strategy

Exploratory Research

Ideation

Testing

(Co) Creation

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Methodology

My approach recipe For me, the methodology is above everything a guiding framework that gives handhold and structure to my projects. To follow it strictly and linear is almost impossible when designing in social context and you will read in the report that there have been a lot of adjustments made in resources during the journey.

Nevertheless, the six steps of my approach recipe have been very useful to direct the way.

Aim of this project The challenge of this project is to design for the improvement of reproductive and sexual health for the vulnerable group of South-African adolescents by looking for opportunities to create more openness, trust and knowledge about sexuality.

Qualitative Design Research Approach.

Within the project I am building my design on meaning, understanding, experience and perceptions. Hence, I have choosen for a very qualitative research and design approach. Like Miles & Huberman (1994, as cited by Bronvik Van Wyck, 2015) suggest, I see the aim of qualitative research as: “explicite the ways people in particular settings come to understand, account for, take action, and otherwise manage their day-to-day situations”. To be able to do so, the qualitative researcher and/or designer should understand that the participants’ participation in a culture includes participation in the narratives of that culture, a general understanding of the stock of meanings’ (Richerdson, as cited by Silverman, 2006). But, as reseacher, with my own stock of meanings, I should also be aware of my subjective ethnocentric lens to effectively explore and work in another culture (Airhihenbuwa, Newsome, & Iwelunmor, 2013).

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Creating my own approach recipe “ The antecedents of practice are incomplete resources, not complete methods.

Thus, research should focus on how resources are configured, combined, andcontextualized. It is also the case that evaluation method designers’ influence is necessarily greatly limited by project specific configuration, contextualization, and combination of methods. We need to also go above the level of recipes and ingredients to cooking a meal. When cooking a meal, a recipe may be required for each dish, but cooks also need to source ingredients and provide appliances such as stoves, freezers, and fridges. Similarly, methods need to be studied in genuine project contexts, with a focus on the interaction between the resources provided by methods, those (not) provided by evaluators, and those (not) provided by the project or organizational context.”

(Cockton, 2004, p. 946) At the start of my project, I roughly had a plan for my final master project, with some steps & interim goals:

[ Identify a social need out of literature research, then go to SouthAfrica to sense and understand the need, go back to the Netherlands, reframe the need, define the opportunity, go to South-Africa again, have a lot of co-creation sessions with my targetgroup to eventually come up with a design(solution) together. Test and plan the implementation. ] In order to support reaching those goals, I went on a search for methods, approaches and processes. I would borrow the parts, steps, practices and tools the resources) that suit my practice as designer and the context I have been working in the best; to create my own approach recipe.

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Explanation With input from all the different methods together, I created the recipe on the next page. It starts with the defining the social need, where after exploratory research in the context takes place. The ideation is an in-between stage, in which connections are made and concept-frameworks will be designed. Bases on that, co-creation with the target group will be executed to come up with a solution for the social need together. Once the solution is there, it will be tested and a service strategy will be designed.

In general, the IDEO Human Centered Design approach is a good one to provide oversight and broad guidance, especially designed for communities in need. Nevertheless, it is quite a linear Design-Thinking approach, starting and ending with the designer. Like Butterfly Works describes in their White Paper (2011), Design-Thinking often moves from ‘Investigate to Design to Plan to Create to Evaluate, without any attention to ownership of the stakeholders.

Investing time and effort in solutions, stakeholders will be highly motivated to defend their long-term existence and viability� Since I pursue this long-term existence I incorporated parts of the generative (co-design) research (Sanders & Stapels, 2014) and the Butterfly Method (Butterfly Works, 2011) in my approach as well Additionally, I used practices from the Logic Model of Need (Bartelomew, 2011) and the qualities of the Sustainist Design Guide (Schwarz, 2013) to create and understand the social fabric of stakeholders and to (re) frame the social need.

Eventually, the business model from Businessmodelling.inc and the Service Blue Print from Servicedesigntools.org have helped me to gain a better understanding of the innovation, implementation and value propositions of the different components of the service.

In the following chapter I will explain in depth about the goal & practices of every stage in my approach.

The following pages will display a comparison of the different methods I have used, as well as how they relate to my recipe.

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Social Need

Service Strategy

Exploratory Research

Ideation

Testing

(Co) Creation

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Social Need

Butterfly Works Methods

Logic Model of Needs/Change

Generative Design Research

(Butterflyworks, 2011)

(Bartholomew et al. 2011)

(Sanders & Stappers, 2014)

Definition of the social problem and the problem owners

Analysis of the project’s context

(Pre-design) Where research, problem definition and the highest opportunity for design takes place.

Problem analysis/ situation analysis Objectives analysis

Context analysis

Stakeholder analysis Risk analysis and risk management

Exploratory Research

Analysis of the assumptions

Ideation to come up with novel solutions to the reframed briefing.

Plan of activities Resource planning Indicators/measurements of objectives

Ideation

(Design) Where continued exploration, design, and development takes place.

Co Ceation Workshop

(Co) Creation

(Discovery) Where opportunity identification and translation of the research to design occurs.

Collaborative Making

(Make) Where production, building and/or manufactering takes place.

Pilot testing and finalising the product (Marketing) Where implementation, roll-out and sales occur.

Testing

Sustainable strategy

Service Strategy

(After Sales) Where product use and service experience happen.

Scaling up

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Human Centered Design Toolkit

Sustainist Design Guide

Business Modelling

(IDEO, 2009)

(Schwarz & Krabbendam, 2013)

(Zott et al., 2011)

(Hear) Collect stories and inspiration from people.

Socially Responsible Design

Prepare for and conduct ďŹ eld research.

Do more with less, Connections, System design, Interdependent, Form follows meaning,

(Understand) Vision Context

Codesign, Context speciďŹ c, (Create) Translate what you heard frameworks, opportunities, solutions, and prototypes.

Open, Working with nature.

(Innovate) Insights Methods Options (Develop) Realize your solutions through rapid revenue and cost modeling, capability assessment, and implementation planning.

(Validate) Assumptions Test Backstage Test Frontstage

(Implement) Graphic Roadmap

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Social Need

1. Definition of Social Need Pre Design, Research, Problem Definition, Innovation opportunity

Within the first stage of my project, there were three research related aims: 1. Gain a deep understanding of the project context through literature research and interviews 2. Awareness of own ethocentric lense, Reflexivity of myself as designer and multicultural understanding 3. Practical preparations and decision making for exploratory research in Kayamandi.

In-depth desk research The challenge had some new subject/terms in it for me (reproductive health, sexual health, South-African adolescents, creating openess, trust and knowledge, sexuality). To be able to work and move in my challenge’ field I gained understanding about it through academic literature, project and NGO descriptions, history books and expert interviews.

Socio Cultural Awareness aware of own subjectivity

Like I mentioned before, as honest, qualitative researcher, I must be consciouss about your own subjectivity, personal history and cultural heritage. To learn about how to do so, I have had multiple sessions with Tessa, who is a sociologist and communication expert.

South Africa, and even a small place as Kayamandi accommodates so many different groups, that I have also dived into Locke’s model of multicultural understanding (Locke & Baily, 2014) , which is a guide to gain knowledge and understanding of culturally diverse individuals and groups. I aimed to create a solid, sound foundation for exploring ethnic differences: “While thorough and comprehensive, this model is succinct enough to be useful in examining

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examine social fabric

the cultural patterns, social relationships, and experiences of culturally diverse individuals and groups�.

A framework with grip and liberty The exploratory design research stage was meant to be very open; to develop as much empathy for my target group as possible and to get inspired: to understand the ‘emotional’ context as well. Therefore, the challenge was to make a plan that had a framework or guidance element and not too many restrictions. I found those characteristics in the need assessment and mapping model of Bartholomew et al., (2011). The model provides both (academic) grip to hold on to and the freedom I need to explore new connections and opportunities in order to reach my exploratory research aims:

explore connections

1. Empathize with the target group 2. Gain knowledge from various backgrounds 3. Find organizations to work together with 4. Find various (target)groups who I can use in my next research 5. Hear stories 6. Search for the ingredients in of the Need Assessment 7. Understand the situation 8. Being able to make the connections 9. Find a direction that has a need and that works 10. Reflection

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Practical Preparations A plan does not only need theory, but some practical preparation as well. Flight tickets, budget calculations, but most importantly, where to live.

Building trust in the community

Personally, I wanted to live in the midst of my target group, in the township of Kayamandi, to experience the township life as much as possible and to feel the needs, restrictions and opportunities. Furthermore, living in Kayamandi displayed that I wanted to do some effort - I was willing to give up some of my comfort and convenience to work with them. In a way this is also about building trust - Like Christopher & Watts (2008) argue, community members notice, and communicate to others, whether the academic partner attends social and cultural events. Being present in the community builds trust because her presence shows that she has a broader interest in the community and is not only there for her own gain.

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Exploratory Research

2. Exploratory Reseach From research to design opportunity area’s

Research Aims A visit to South Africa was critical to do exploratory and empathizing research in order to understand what the context is like and to lay the foundation of information for the definition of opportunity area’s.

Logic model of needs as guideline

As I mentioned, I have used the framework of the Logic Model of Needs Assessment as guideline for what kind of information I should acquire. The model encompasses two elements: 1. An epidemiological, behavioral, and social perspective of a community or population at risk for health-related problems ; 2. An effort to understand the character of the community, its members and its strength.

To gain information, I have executed user-centered research and some attempts to do participatory research as well.

Interviews Interviews I have done (individual) interviews with stakeholders from different levels and with backgrounds with the interview- and discussion cards I have made during the contextcards preparation stage in the Netherlands (see Appendix). The more interviews I did, the more involved I got in the context and the more I could build on information from prior conversations. Most interviews, on condition that the interviewee approved, are audio recorded. No payment was given to participants for participating in research. The list of people interviewed is to be viewed in the Appendix.

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Discussion Groups Sharing of personal stories

Next to individual interviews, I have joined a focus group of young mothers to have group interviews. Being surrounded by women who are in the same situation as they are themselves, empowered them to speak up and to tell me more personal stories.

Unfortunately it was impossible to establish a work-group consisting of my target-group of teenagers, because at the time I was in Kayamandi, the high school had its examination period.

Observations and informal research I have done a lot of observations and informal chatting to get hold of the situation from a different perspectives. Conversations in disco’s during night hours while dancing and an interview in an office with the audio recorder are not comparable.

With Tessa and two isiXhosa interpreters, I have done reporter sessions in the streets of Kayamandi in order to examine the target group’s knowledge and ability to share stories right away. We have documented their stories with stunning portraits.

Network Building Network for follow-up in spring

Most importantly, I have introduced myself and the project at several NGO’s, schools and medical institutions, to check out whether they were interested to corporate with me in various ways, such as sharing knowledge, their network, people and joining me during the follow up in Spring 2016.

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Level and category analysis To translate the research outcomes to design opportunities, I have done an effort to structure it using multiple models: - Ecologic levels (macro, meso and micro) - Exposure categories (sociocultural, economic, psychological etc.)

- Opportunity Area’s in context, linked to main stakeholders.

These constructions of information made the mapping of connections in a later stage manageable. (And sometimes my head was so full of new information that I had to get it on the wall).

Social Media During my whole visit in South-Africa I tried to direct people to my Facebook page to build a community on social media as well. On this Facebook page I continuously posted my own experiences, insights from the research I

Understand power of internet

have done and two polls. The Facebook page was also an (first) attempt to understand the power of internet and social media when it comes to reaching my target group. I have set a certain budget to promote my page, polls and posts. Facebook analytics and Google forms give a clear oversight of which persons have been visiting what and when (See facebook.com/ happyhealthydesign/)

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Ideation

3. Ideation Connection magic Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se. Charles Eames In this stage, several project determining decisions had to be taken; most importantly the definition of the opportunity area and usergroup. The results from my exploratory research were stories, insights, observations, needs and understandings. To analyze them they have to be linked to each other.

Connections can make us perceive a challenge as a wicked problem. On the other side of the coin, they make the irrational rational. Connections can explain things that we were not able to see or comprehend before. The main goal of this connection magic is to lead me to promising opportunity areas, for which I can start ideating.

Logic Model of Needs and Nodes visualisation of personal determinants

I have continued filling the Logic Model of needs (Bartholomew et al.,2011) to have an oversight of character and needs of the community. Then, to have an overview of the inside of the mind of my target group, I have used Peter’s (2014) network of interconnected nodes. In this network, each node represents for example, a perception, emotion, or cognition. It is connected to the LMN, because it is a tool to visualize the personal determinants like risk perception, habit, social norm, attitude and personal norm.

Worth Mapping Finally, I have connected the personal determinants to values for interaction & products/ systems/services in a Worth Map (Gilbert Cockton,2013); to bridge the research with the conceptualization stage. The model doesn’t only represent the values of the user- and targetgroup in a certain situation, but also

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Look from different perspective

the values they are looking for in a future product/service/system (concept).

In the beginning I was quite strict in using the models, but while doing I experienced that my research output - resulting from my very open research aim - was actually too comprehensive/widespread to use as input for my these models. A part of the narrowing down that I aimed to get out of these models, had actually be done before using the models. Nevertheless, they had forced me to get out of the ‘insider position’, zoom out and map from out three different perspectives.

Themes & Opportunity Area’s The mappings were perfect material to extract themes and opportunity area’s from. The process of translating insights into opportunities is about moving from the current state to envisioning future possibilities. An opportunity is a rearticulation of problems or needs in a generative, future facing way and often starts with ‘How might we .. ?’ to suggest a mindset of possibility (IDEO, 2009).

Once the list with themes and opportunity area’s was defined, I discussed them

Selection of themes

with my Happy Healthy Design Team, design experts and a sexuologist. Based on experience, interest, viability and feasibility, we narrowed them down to three themes with a couple of opportunity area’s. Those were the foundation of a Pressure Cooker (together with Joes) and the ideation of concept sketches.

Taking into account the wishes and advices of my professional environment, I selected the idea in which I saw the most potential. By that time, the challenge could to be reframed, the user group defined and preparations for the next stage in South-Africa could start!

Teamwork In this stage, Joes Janmaat also started with her related project to design a context driven workshop toolkit. My context and challenge will be her main input.

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Preparations Co-Creation Data collection strategy

The major activity of preparation was the data collection strategy. We aimed to do workshops as source of information creation. By doing, we wanted to collect information for improvement and change (iteration) of the workshops and to co design a tangible tool.

Like I had experienced during my first visit, groups of women or girls together are more ‘naturalistic’ than individual interviews. “closer to everyday conversations” (Wilkinson, cited by Bronvik Van Wyck, 2015). Also, it gives women space to to talk among themselves, explain things to each other and learn from each other how they cope with an issue.

Very African style business

To have a group of women and a group of girls, I reached out to the network that I build last time when I was in Kayamandi. They were all very positive about working together, but they liked to discuss organisational matters face-toface once I was there. Basically, I had to deal with a lot of half confirmations; something I had already taken into account having experienced business in

Design of Toolkit for workshops

South Africa.

Based on my project aims, Joes made - in an unbelievable short time - a great set of creative tools to facilitate, support, and provoke associations, emotions, expressions, knowledge & creative thinking. The tools are based on techniques and principles from design, psychology and sexual education. Especially when doing a project about a culturally and socially delicate subject as sexuality, creative tools are wonderful to express meanings without having to use words per se.

Like using IDEO HCD toolkit, for every workshop session I can pick

and choose techniques/tools that work best for the subject and context we are working at.

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(Co) Creation

4. Co(creation) Working together towards a solution The (co)creation started in Kayamandi, with workshops and interviews. I will speak in the ‘we’ form, although the most of the workshop sessions are done either by me or by Joes. We have only been together in South Africa for two overlapping weeks.

Facilitation of workshops Background of the participants

Stellenbosch Area

We have done the workshops in cooperation with the NGO’s Love2Give and the Legacy Centre. They are both situated in Kayamandi, Stellenbosch Local Municipality. Stellenbosch is a small historic town, not far from Capetown and the area is renowned for its scenic beauty, rural landscapes and winelands. *The panoramic vista of vineyards and mountains could easily obscure the legacy of inequity of the apartheid system, which Black people still face* (Bronvin van Wyck, 2015).

Kayamandi Xhosa culture

We have done our project in Kayamandi, formerly classified as a Black township.

Kayamandi has a diverse ethnic and cultural composition. The residents mainly belong to Xhosa, Tswana and Cape Coloured ethnic groups, and include a handful of European descendants and immigrants from other African countries such as Lesotho, Somalia, Nigeria or Ethiopia. However, the majority of residents belong to ethnic clans of the Xhosa. The main language spoken in Kayamandi is isiXhosa. The second most common language is Afrikaans, which does not only link Kayamandi residents with the Afrikaans culture in Stellenbosch, but is also a precondition for occupation arrangements in town.

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LovetoGive - Mamma’s Group of girls from 30 - 60 yrs

We have worked with three groups of six to ten ‘mamma’s’ from the non governmental organisation of LovetoGive. LovetoGive runs an Enterprise Development programme directed at parents. Every six months, 100 mothers enroll and receive a large monthly food parcel. We help parents identify and create income-earning opportunities through training and mentorship programmes. These include craft, micro-business courses, and vocational counselling. This programme also includes vegetable gardening, medical knowledge lectures, gym and life skills support.

The women in our groups varied in age from 30 to 60 years, and all took care of a girl between 11 and 15 years old. None of them had work at the moment (one of the requirements to join the Lovetogive Program), often due to low education levels. The majority of the women were living either in the multigeneration family or single parent situation.

We had our group sessions every week on Tuesday from 9 to 12 AM (Although we are speaking about African time here:)).

Legacy Centre - Girls We have been working with a group of 17 girls, who where in the Khulani Kayamandi after school programme from the Legacy Centre. This programme is based on the premise that the building of an accountable generation that will take responsibility for their own future is the best way to bring real change and hope to the community.

Group of girls from 11 - 15 yrs

The girls were all in the menarche age - from 11 to 15 years old. Their living situation was quite diverse in comparison to the group of women that was mainly very poor. Some girls lived in formal settlements with only their parents and one sibling, while others lived in small shacks with multiple generations.

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We had the group sessions with the girls every Thursday evening from 3 to 4.30 PM. Additionally to this group of girls, I have also facilitated two small groups of two neighbours girls.

Facilitating the workshop sessions is beautiful and at the same time exhausting work. It is a continuous balancing of liberty and guidance, listening and sharing, documenting and facilitating. Though, like Gergen (2001) argues, through

Shaving, shifting and changing of ideas

a dialogical process of interaction, the exisiting ideas in a group are shaved, shifted and changed and result in its transformation and changes among the participants in the group (including the researcher). It awas amazing to be part of such a thing and it provides valuable hooks and ingredients for design.

In both the girls and women groups, we always started with a energizer and introduction ritual. After that, we picked the tools that logically followed the ones before them. When the tool we were looking for was not yet in our toolbox, we just designed them ‘on the spot’ and could explore its potential the day or week after in a workshop session. In that sense the workshop evolved quite naturally.

While the first weeks in South Africa were more content research for me (looking for meanings, expressions, understanding), the rest of the weeks I changed my mindset more towards creating a tangible design; building on the input from the weeks before and together with the mamma’s and daughters (looking for cues, interest and joy). Joes carried on working out the input and output of the workshops in depth.

Eventually, among other ideas, I came up with Flowers of Kayamandi, Personal Period Care.

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Testing

5. Concept Testing Viability & Feasibility In this stage, next to facilitating the workshops, we have started to prototype the personal period soap as well. This meant that we started to research how to make soap, what the ingredients could be like and how to communicate it as well.

Thereby, I had to invent how the system around it would be like, and try to examine that in parts and as a whole. Hence, I decided to test the Personal Period Care in various settings; in the workshop, the Kayamandi community, digitally and in the Netherlands.

Workshop Streetsale Mothers’ Day

We have worked incredably hard to design and perform test in all settings.

First of all, we adjusted the workshops to have the process of soap making as one of the main activities? Secondly, we did a street sale in Kayamandi, with the help op people from the community itself. And lastly, we realized to have a Flowers of Kayamandi Mother’s Day offer that was on purchase via our website.

Within all our test we kept especially one of the pillars of the Sustainist Design Guide (Schwarz & Krabbendam, 2013) in our heads : “How might we design for localism, in a global context” ; to have local as value, also in the global context.

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Service Strategy

6. Strategy Service & implemenation planning Business plan & service experience With lots of experiences, new information and a brand new system design, I went back to the Netherlands to analyse our tests, approach communication & sexuality experts, work out the digital platform and make a start with business modelling.

Soft side of the business

While Tessa spend time on the financial feasiblity of our system, I have been researching the soft side like user sketches, the product use, the ethical side, the service experience and the value propositions. Using existing models like the business modelling canvas and the service blue print help me to understand the various components of the system.

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Reflection

On my approach An approach can be planned, resources can be prepared, but in the real context it will always turn out slightly different. This reflection is about the strenghts and limitation of my chosen resources and what I could have done different Defining the social need.

This stage had more or less two aims: to define the social need and to get aware of my own ‘stock of meanings’. When I think back to this stage, I should have reflected more on why I personally think there is a need than to find the relevance in others’ words or arguments. This would have helped me communicating my aim and dedication much better from the start te exploratory research stage.

Exploratory Research Although I had a research plan and resources as well, the whole exploratory research stage feels a bit like I was lost in context. South-Africa doesn’t do how you planned it - it moves in a different rhytm and time. I would advice others to take more time to feel this rhytm, before they start to do full on research - and realize that it is a huge part of the (emphatizing) research as well.

In hindsight, I should have made the category and level structure much earlier in the research stage. To see connections while I was there, and to clear my head.

Ideation I used the selected models more as guidance for mapping my results, than as magical output providers. First, I tried to have a mapping sessions with my whole team, but that ended in a lot of confusion - I had to make my own connections first, before sharing the unattached dots with others.

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The creation of themes and opportunity areas did not solely come from the analysis of models; they rather sparked from the combination of the analysis and my design vision and intuition. The more experience I have in the field of design, the more I understand the balance or research and intuition and the more I dare to trust to put more weight on the intuition side.

Co-Creation I found the Co-creation part she most exiting and most complex part. Sanders & Stappers (2014) say in their book about co creation that everybody is creative, but often in a different level. The right design of tools will trigger their creativity In Kayamandi, I quickly understood that, also in terms of creativity, I come from a completely different, individualistic, culture. I value originality and a personal touch, while the women I worked with liked to create the same and where looking for mediocrity. This meant that I had to redesign or reframe the tools in order to gain the very personal information that I was looking for; paradoxically more personal triggers and more groupexercises. In small groups the women tend to be more comfortable to express their personal opinion or creativity.

To be a facilitator, reporter and researcher at the same is quite a lot; in the overlapping week that Joes was there, it was such a relief of effort! Two women are stronger than one, in making decisions, preparing and facilitating.

Testing While testing, I was debated the ethical side of this project a lot. I didn’t want to be the next cheating traditional healer (in very extremes). What if the ingredients in the soap didn’t actually work? How to communicate that the soap is not a medicin? Especially in Kayamandi, I experienced a lot of willingness to believe everything regarding to healthy issues and I didn’t want to make use of their non-critical background. The pilot tests have given me more insight about this ethical side, both in the Netherlands and South-Africa. I realized a product and its’ message are inseparable; both their content, impact and understanding have to be considered.

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Service Strategy At this moment of development, the right definition of the value propositions are essential to bring the service and the product to the next step. The business modelling and service design tool helped a bit, but are more focussing on the bigger picture. When Joes is back from South-Africa, I hope to pick up a bit of the ‘African vibe’ to truly feel South-Africa and the real value of our project again.

Teamwork To have a team, even on a distance, is an amazing luxury and I would recommend everybody to do a project like this with other people. Being together in the field is even worthier, especially because it gives the opportunity to reflect together from out a shared background. This fastens up the process and decisions are easier and faster to be taken.

In Kayamandi, it also meant more freedom. Together, we were for example allowed to walk to Stellenbosch. Alone that would never have been possible.

Back in the Netherlands, Joes and I still exchanged input and output to help each others’ design challenge. Having Joes there made is possible to test my take on the combination of packaging and personal education. In my turn, I interviewed experts in the Netherland to receive feedback on both of our concepts.

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Social Need

Service Strategy

Testing

(Co) Creation

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Reflexivity

My own story as girl and daughter How the research may have affected and possibly changed us, as people, reseacher and designers “

- Willig (2001, p.10)

I am a white, Dutch woman, sister and daughter. I am already 27 years old and I do not have children yet, which is a deliberate choice. Doing a project with mothers, I sometimes missed an own perspective of being a mum - I could only reflect on my role as a woman and as a daughter and compare it to the girls in my own project.

I grew up in de midst of my family, that consisted out of as many girls as boys. We were all raised as equal, and in general, we got the same changes.

Sometimes my brother was allowed to cycle home from soccer in the evening, while my dad would pick me up from gymnastic training, but that was all.

Thinking about our sexuality education at home, I remember that I, a girl from 12, was very curious how and when my body would change. My mum borrowed a picture-video from the library about puberty and every now and then there was a book on my bed cabinet to read through privately. I checked in the mirror how my body grew, I touched it and my mum gave me information when needed. She also shared personal experiences from when she was young, in her family situations with all boys in a Christian family.

When my menarche finally came, I knew exactly what just happened. Still, there was a little debate going on how to tell my mum and the rest of the family. I decided to just call out for my mum. When she heared and saw why I called for her, she was happy and said things like: “You are a woman now” and

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“Congratulations”. Then, without any warning, she shouted from the top of the stairs: “Rene!! Your daughter is a woman now - she started menstruation!”.

At that moment, that was a bit shameful. The menstruation cycle on itself was not a secret, but MY menstruationcycle, that was a different story. All the boys in the house knew it now and it was all so new to me that I did now know how to react to things they said about it.

This is exactly in the line of the research of Teitelman (2004) and

Rembeck, Möller, and Gunnarsson (2006) that girls felt their mothers violated their privacy when their mothers told other familymembers that the girls have started menstruating Anyways, my mum was my big help, and for sure the main source of support and authority with regards to menstruation matters. Of course I did have peers who also went through the same new, bloody experiences, but I was not so comfortable among them that I shared all my experiences. I think it was fear to share something that would be strange or different and that they would tell that to somebody else. While I knew that it was safe when I would tell it to my mum, her lips would be sealed (or maybe she would tell it to my dad). It does not mean that I was the most open adolescent, telling my mum all my secrets and doubts and mental issues. Neither that I always listened immediately to her advice. Nevertheless, just the knowledge that my mum (and dad) would always be there for me and that I could ask any question were signs of a sound familiar relationship & supportive environment that play a significant role in adolescents’ well-being and are associated with a range of positive outcomes, such as healty self-esteem, better school achievements, and lower levels of behavioural and psychological problems (Hendry & Kloep, 2012; Louw & Louw, 2014).

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Later, being confident about my body and myself, I talk about almost everything that has to do with female sexuality and menstruation with other women.

Talking about something we all share gives me a warm feeling, it bonds us women immediately. And most of the time it gives me the confirmation that something I was worrying about, is actually pretty normal. I thank my mum for being so open about everything from the beginning; that has helped me a lot later on. This open attitude also helped me in Kayamandi to invite others to tell something about themselves as well.

I have also tried to have a conversation with men about menstruation. That didn’t went so well. Almost all of them said that they were not allowed to speak about it. “It is from the women, it is a women thing”. Women do not speak about it with their men. Apart from the strict gender differences that define social behavior in the Xhosa culture, from my own experiences I know how difficult it can be to share and show something that is both natural and beautiful, but also awkward, smelly and - for men - alienate . Though, resulting from growing up in a female empowered society, I feels like I disown myself when I feel a little ashamed or do not speak openly about it with my boyfriend, brothers of fathers.

My personal belief is that we have to approach this with babysteps. A conversation between mother and daughter about blood and vagina’s can can open up the opportunity for these girls later to use these words in sexual negotiations as well. Just like me.

Manon.

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Soc Ne

Service Strategy

Testing

( Cre

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cial eed

(Co) eation

Exploratory Research

Ideation

Process Chapters

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In this chapter, the social need will be described by the design brief, the definitions of the terms in the design challenge and the explanation of the situation in South-Africa.

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Social Need

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The dirty Secret of South Africa A context sketch Any reasonable person would call this a crisis. Many would attribute it to ‘promiscuity’ or the ‘immorality’ of modern youth. The gut reaction to crisis, the visceral response, is to suppress and crack down. The actual root of the problem, however, is a combination of historical and social factors that prevent meaningful conversations about sex, limit the use of contraceptives and safe sex practices, and force sex underground. Primary among these is a culture that views teenage sex as taboo, as ‘dirty’ and immoral, as something not to be spoken of except with dismissal or denial. Sexual activity outside of marriage, or at too young an age, remains widely stigmatized and is associated with feelings of guilt and shame.

Let me put this as starkly as I can: we live in a country where any pregnant woman can legally opt for an abortion, and yet more than half of women who opt to abort choose to do so illegally and dangerously. We live in a country where sexual education is a part of every student’s syllabus, and yet HIV continues to spread and teenage pregnancy persists. The primordial importance of communal views of sex is succinctly expressed in a study by Abigail Harrison of Brown University: “Younger teenage women viewed abstinence as the ‘right’ thing to do as well as a preferred HIV-prevention strategy. The fact that they were not abstinent themselves did not hinder these feelings but strongly influenced self-perceptions of their own behavior, which was seen to be transgressing accepted community norms.”

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All of the evidence suggests young people are sexually active from a young age, despite the disapproval of their parents and communities, and despite the heavyhanded promotion of abstinence at schools and in their homes. This leaves us in a double bind: the powerful stigmatization of sexual activity does not prevent that activity, but does drive it underground. It means teenagers are more likely to conduct sexual relationships in secret. It means they are too ashamed to get condoms, and so scared of public scrutiny that they opt for illicit abortions.

Where does this repressive instinct come from? Tracing the historical development of the abstinence culture, the main culprit seems to be the influence of highly conservative Christian missionaries in the early days of colonial South Africa.

Before their arrival, traditional African cultures acknowledged the inevitability of teenage sexuality, and sought constructive ways to channel it (through, for example, the transmission of sexual knowledge from elders to children from a young age, and the promotion of non-penetrative practices such as ukusoma).

The missionaries, though, with their Victorian view of sex as evil and marriage as holy, achieved a wholesale distortion of this approach and replaced it with the mantra of “repression until consummation�. Over many decades teenage sexuality became the dark shadow of human nature, to be bottled up and pushed to the very back of the shelf. Apartheid morality, which viewed sexual desire (and the possibility of interracial sex) as a fundamental threat to its Christianized system, served to reinforce this agenda. It lives on today�.

- Saul Musker, Daily Maverick, 2015

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1. Social need

Understanding the situation Design Brief.

The last decades, the perception on sexuality and reproductive health has changed in South Africa. This had lead to a situation with denial, repression and ignorance of teenage sexuality, while there also exists a substantial risk on sexual transmitted infections (STI & HIV/AIDS), unintended teenage pregnancies, unsafe abortions and other problems from largely hidden activity. Hence, there is a considerable need for South African adolescents to be informed on how to have a responsible, satisfying and safe sex life and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so (Happy Healthy Sex).

The challenge is to design for the improvement of reproductive and sexual health for the vulnerable group of South-African adolescents by looking for opportunities to create more openness, trust and knowledge about sexuality.

I have approached the project from a cultural perspective; to develop (1.) a deep understanding of (the influence) of culture on reproductive health and sexuality to find (2.) design opportunWities, which eventually will be turned into (3.) a design concept.

Generally, research has shown that parents’ attitudes to sexuality and sexual communication to their children exert significant influences on the children’s attitudes towards sexuality, as well as their initiation and participation in sexual activity, and use of contraceptives (Jaccard, Ditus & Gordon, 1998).

For this reason there might be opportunities of having mothers as usergroup to find a way to re-invent their role of sexual socializing agent.

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Definition of the Challenge’s terms Adolescense (WHO, 2016)

1. Key developmental experiences The process of adolescence is a period of preparation for adulthood during which time several key developmental experiences occur. Besides physical and sexual maturation, these experiences include movement toward social and economic independence, and development of identity, the acquisition of skills needed to carry out adult relationships and roles, and the capacity for abstract reasoning. While adolescence is a time of tremendous growth and potential, it is also a time of considerable risk during which social contexts exert powerful influences.

2. No children, no adults Adolescents are different both from young children and from adults. Specifically, adolescents are not fully capable of understanding complex concepts, or the relationship between behavior and consequences, or the degree of control they have or can have over health decision making including that related to sexual behaviour. This inability may make them particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation and high-risk behaviours. Laws, customs, and practices may also affect adolescents differently than adults. For example, laws and policies often restrict access by adolescents to reproductive health information and services, especially when they are unmarried. In addition, even when services do exist, provider attitudes about adolescents having sex often pose a significant barrier to use of those services.

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Sexual and reproductive health - more than just sex WHO (2002)

1. Sexuality Sexuality is a central aspect of being human throughout life and encompasses sex, gender identities and roles, sexual orientation, eroticism, pleasure, intimacy and reproduction. Sexuality is experienced and expressed in thoughts, fantasies, desires, beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviours, practices, roles and relationships.

While sexuality can include all of these dimensions, not all of them are always experienced or expressed. Sexuality is influenced by the interaction of biological, psychological, social, economic, political, cultural, ethical, legal, historical, religious and spiritual factors.

2. Sexual health Sexual Health is a state of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being in relation to sexuality; it is not merely the absence of disease, dysfunction or infirmity. Sexual health requires a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships, as well as the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion, discrimination and violence. For sexual health to be attained and maintained, the sexual rights of all persons must be respected, protected and fulfilled.

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3. Sexual rights Sexual rights embrace human rights that are already recognized in national laws, international human rights documents and other consensus statements. They include the right of all persons, free of coercion, discrimination and violence, to: • the highest attainable standard of sexual health, including access to sexual and reproductive health care services; • seek, receive and impart information related to sexuality; • sexuality education; • respect for bodily integrity; • choose their partner; • decide to be sexually active or not; • consensual sexual relations; • consensual marriage; • decide whether or not, and when, to have children; and • pursue a satisfying, safe and pleasurable sexual life.

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South Africa/Kayamandi - culture clash & triple burden South-Africa is one of the countries with the highest levels of inequality in the world and income inequality and unemployment have escalated. There is low life expactancy of approximately 57 years and poor people continue to have limited access to basic opportunities and services (Narayan & Mahajan, 2013).

The majority of the population still experiences the triple burden of poverty, unemployment and inequality daily.

The complex intersectionality of race, class and gender, influence heterosexual gender relations and still shape the lives experiences of women and girls.

Particularly Black women in South-Africa are extremely poor and their political/ material power is still relatively limited. Despite the positive gains since 1994 (after apartheid), patriarchal ideologies and gender discrimination seem to persist both in the private and public spheres in South-African society.

A patriarchal society Patriarchal ideologies clearly demarcate social life into the private sphere, which is associated with women, nurturing and caring for others, and the public/ social sphere that is associated with men (Andersen & Taylor, 2006). Numerous studies in South-Africa have consistently found that both women and men tend to uphold the traditional notions of gender in their intimate, interpersonal and other domains of social interaction.

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unemployment

inequality

poverty TRIPLE BURDEN

Private Public & Social

Traditional notion of gender space (Andersen & Taylor, 2006)

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Successful Gender Roles in S.A. (Boonzaier & De La Rey, 2004)

male authority, head of the household and provides of narratives passivity, care, nurturance and selessness

Christianity

Indigenous Xhosa culture

Modern world

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Culture Clash In the PRB report Facts of Life, Youth Sexuality and Reproductive Health in the Middle East and North Africa (2011), Farzaneh Roudi-Fahimi gives a perfect general description of the culture clash in North Africa & the Middle East, which in my opinion counts for South Africa (and especially in a Rainbow city as Stellenbosch) as well.

Farzaneh Roudi-Fahimi (2011): “ Like any other aspect of life, young people’s sexual and reproductive health behavior is shaped by the economic, social, and cultural context in which they are raised, including the powerful forces of religion and tradition, which set gender roles and define taboos. Parents and families strongly influence children’s behavior by enforcing these social norms.

At the same time, however, globalization is bringing a new dimension into people’s lives, particularly those of young people, who have an enormous capacity to learn about and embrace new trends and technologies. At the click of a button, for better or worse, the Internet and satellite television expose users to a world of ideas and information beyond their immediate communities. Today’s youth must now navigate two worlds—local and global—simultaneously, which they often find in conflict. ” More than the countries that Roudi-Fahimi writes about, South Africa has a multi-culture nature, what means that there is no single socio-cultural context.

Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala desrcibes this beautifully in The Sociocultural Aspects of HIV/AIDS in South Africa (2009): “South Africa is home to a rich tapestry of racial, ethnic, religious and linguistic groups. As a result of colonial history and more recent migration, indigenous Africans have come to live alongside large populations of people with European, Asian and mixed descent, all of whom could lay claim to distinctive cultural practices and spiritual beliefs”.

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Basically, adolescents living in South Africa now are experiencing influences by indigenous African culture, Christian values and the exposures of the modern world.

Among the many differences, there are similarities across African communities, for example in the nature and implications of marriage, descent and residence; practices and beliefs that highly influence sexuality and reproductive health.

Some aspects of these behaviors found to increase the vulnerability of people to for example HIV infection in South Africa include practices such as multiple and concurrent sexual partnering, age-disparate and intergenerational sex, dry sex practices, unequal gender power relations, high levels of sexual violence, on-going AIDS related stigma and denial and a variety of practices relating to cultural rites of passage around puberty, marriage and death (Leclerc-Madlala, Leickness, & Cloete, 2009) , pp 16) Many of the cultural ideals have survived generations of colonial and apartheid history in the region and continue to play significant roles in shaping the attitudes, beliefs and values that people hold according to relations, gender and sexuality in general. Together, they are still the foundation of traditional social life and the three elements still continue to provide important reference points for Black South-African people.

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United Nations

(as cited in Bronvyk Van Wyck, 2015)

Inequality and poverty in South-Africa is “ all the more glaring because it coexists with striking affluence and retains racial dimensions. While some children in South Africa live in relative luxury and have access to world class education and health services, others face threats to their development. ”

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Openess, trust & knowledge - sexual socializers Looking at this context, the question arrises how, through who and what kind of knowledge about sexuality and reproductive health is transferred to youth in South Africa? What is the perception on sexual education and what are the culturally embedded reasons abehind the transfer?

Pilot Mudhovozi (2012) writes that it has been a practice in African societies for adolescents to be educated about sexuality. Before the urban migration that happened in the last 30 years, most of the South African people lived in small communities in which sexuality contributed to social cohesion. Therefore, they developed ‘rules’ concerning the expression of sexuality as well as mechanisms for controlling sexual behavior. These principles were communicated to young people through initiation ceremonies. Traditional rituals also prepared young people for their adult role, including education on the responsibilities of sex, marriage and child-bearing.

However, these rituals have lost their significance and the transition from childhood to adulthood has been complicated by the development of the phase of adolescence, as well as by the decline of traditional sources of authority, such as an extended family (Balmer et al., 1997). This decline has implications.

Extended family members, including ‘tetes’ or paternal aunts, are no longer available for advice to young women, and young men lack the guidance they used to receive from village elders, as a consequence of rural to urban migration and urbanization (Mudhovozi, Ramarumo, & Sodi, 2012) According to research, adults have difficulty acknowledging their adolescents as sexual beings and, therefore, adolescent sexuality is viewed as something that needs to be controlled and restricted (Mudhovozi, Ramarumo, & Sodi, 2012).

Additionally, Petchesky and Judd (1998) argue that parents seem reluctant and anxious to talk to young people about sex as a result of the fear to encourage sexual activity.

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Schools do have sexuality education in their curriculum, but they often lack skilled teachers to communicate this complex and value-loaded subject in the right manner.

User group opportunity?

Generally, research has shown that parents’ attitudes to sexuality and sexual communication to their children exert significant influences on the children’s attitudes towards sexuality, as well as their initiation and participation in sexual activity, and use of contraceptives (Jaccard, Ditus & Gordon, 1998).

For this reason I see opportunities of having mothers as user-group to find a way to re-invent their role of sexual socializing agent in order to re-create the openness, trust and knowledge about sexuality that was once the norm in South-African cultures.

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This chapter will give an oversight about the exploratory research I have done in Kayamandi.

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Exploratory Research

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Exploratory Research Stories from Kayamandi

Within this chapter, I will show a selection of research findings that were desicive for my ideation stage in which I reframed my challenge. The three themes I will serve are timely and adequate information, decision making and personal experience

1. Adequate and timely information In a lot of cases, information is getting lost in a lack of time, responsibility and sensitivity. At home parents or guardians find it difficult to find the time to sit down with their teenagers and talk about sexuality, HIV and STD’s, because of long working hours. In the Xhosa culture it is quite difficult to talk about sexuality, although people become more open about it. Girls and boys are not suppose to discuss sexual body issues and contraception is perceived as a women issue.

Parents act more than that they speak about it. For example, they take their girls to the clinic for free family planning, but they do not talk to their children about the risks of having sex. Teenagers are not motivated to ask questions about sexuality, although they do want to know things about it.

Schools often do not have special LO teachers who have to cover sexuality and health. This leads to situations in which the math or language teacher has to teach the topics. It can also be difficult for the teachers to hold LO classes as it can be a difficult topic to discuss. Some teachers simply don’t feel qualified enough to discuss the issues.

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One retired LO teacher with degrees in Sociology and Psychology told me it is a hard situation to overcome. Schools often have conflicting regime’s and they have to bend to pressure from external influences. The communities supporting the schools, parents and children also need to see and understand the significance of these LO classes and the value of protecting their health in the long run. It is a chicken and egg problem that needs the Boards of the Schools involved to overcome.

Some schools do not talk about genitalia in first degree, and often children already have an awareness of sex and related activities through observing their parents at home due to the lack of privacy afforded by their accommodation.

This can result in boundary issues as they create their own interpretation of these experiences, with no corrections when these are wrong, and no forum to openly discuss it.

Consequently teenagers lack basic knowledge about how their body works; for example about the menstruation cycle or how contraception actually works to prevent pregnancy and spread of disease.

Mama Madiba (grandmother, owner of creche) “Injections give a fake sense of reality and female condoms feel like they are not safe” At the moment their is an HIV boom in Kayamandi again, in the age group of 15 to 45yrs.

Tracey Smith (Legacy Center, HIV/AIDS clinic Kayamandi) “I believe that more than 80% of the pregnancies in Kayamandi are unplanned. If you can get pregnant, you can get HIV”

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2. Decision Making Abortion is legal and free for girls from 12 years old, but it is a very difficult choice to make. Not only from a biological and psychological side, but also culturally, religious and socially. There is stigma around abortion, and it doesn’t help that they are done in the clinic of Kayamandi, where there is basically no privacy and confidentiality at all. Girls see pregnancy as their own responsibility and most of them told me that an abortion is only acceptable when being raped.

Andrea Thompson (Marie Stopes South Africa) “ There are very strict abortion laws in South Africa. Women cannot bring pills home, the only option is to go to the clinic, which is often very intimidating, clinical and not discrete. This actually drives the girls to illegal abortion clinics, that are providing the wanted fast and ‘at home’ service”.

Because of the shortage of proper sexual and reproductive health education, there is a low understanding of anatomy. This leads to odd assumptions about bodies, sexuality and sex. The worrying aspect is that teenagers make decisions based on these assumptions and that by not learning about body, sexuality and health, myths will easily mistaken for the truth and spread. Most parents don’t like it when their children have a lot of friends. This means an enhanced risk of bad influence and negative peer pressure.

Eunice (grandmother and retired LO-teacher “You should be your own best friend. Do not ever trust someone else with your secrets, they will only use it against you in the end. Love and friendship make you vulnerable”.,

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I believe that teenagers in Kayamandi still suffer from an inferiority complex (inherited from their parents who have lived under the Apartheid regime) hence, they are not very keen on taking initiative. The Ubuntu spirit is still alive, although the community is growing and taking care for each other is not as self-evident as it used to be. As a results, standing out sexually or with a very odd future plan is not appreciated. Schools do not focus on health and sexuality when they talk about future plans The life of the people of Kayamandi is very much in the public, on the streets, because the shacks are too small for big families. Every choice you make is sensible by your family, neighbors and the rest of the community.

Need for youth centre to discuss issues and needs of teenagers (without heavy background) - A safe, sensitive, discrete place where you can get guidance.

Fertility is one of the most important social status’ in the Xhosa culture, hence they are quite skeptical about certain contraception methods. Situations in which girls will only be stimulated to use contraception after their first child are common and there are a lot of myths about how contraception influences male/ female fertility in a negative way.

Woman at focus group for young mothers (Love2Give): “Myths that are going round are for example that an implant can get lost in your body when you gain weight or that it protects against HIV” Myths and misinterpretations of knowledge are partly because of culture (language) differences. Xhosa children in Kayamandi get education in English, but their first language is isiXhosa. For example, in isiXhosa words such as orgasm, ejaculation and ovulation don’t exist, this can lead to confusion when Xhosa teenagers try to understand how the reproductive system works.

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3. Personal Experience The masculine character of the Xhosa culture has also a significant influence on the experience of sex and sexuality in and outside relationships. There is a lot of sexual abuse and coercion. Again, some men don’t know any better that they decide everything in the house and a lot of women think that you can’t say ‘no’ in relationships.

Cheating is fine when it doesn’t interfere with other relationships. Though, when people are developing their emotional Intelligence and the risks of HIV, they start to understand the impact it has on relationships and the family life.

Tracey Smith (Legacy Center, HIV/AIDS clinic Kayamandi) “ I have heard stories that women insert a female condom before going to bed Friday night, because they know their husband will come home drunk in the early morning and will try to have sex ” The first thing that children learn about sexuality and sex is a story about a ‘naughty uncle’ that wants to see the private parts of little girls. The girls are taught to scream and run away. For me this is a perfect example how sexuality is framed is the township.

For teachers it ís difficult to talk about sexuality, because it is easy to say something that the community doesn’t find appropriate and against culture/ religion. Therefor it is necessary to always involve and explain to parents what information is told for which reason.

The (non) privacy in the shacks is an issue for the experience of sex for both parents and children. Parents do not have the space and time to fully explore sexually, what makes sex a quick and dirty thing. Children are exposed to sex very early, because they are basically in the same room. As a matter of fact this doesn’t have to be a bad thing, it is when there is substance abuse and sexual violence involved. The tv that is always on does also show a distorted view of

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life to children . Monkey sees, monkey does.

Loko (cleaner, grandma): “ The tv is always on all programs with sex in. The children copy the terms but don’t know what they mean. I sometimes see the children playing that they have sex, with their pants down “ The increase of population in Kayamandi and since ten years there is an explosive growth of the informal settlements. Additionaly, the unemployment rate it increasing and especially men spending time drinking alcohol and using other addictive substances as TIC. All together this makes Kayamandi less safe , clean and pleasant.

It is dangerous for women to walk alone in the township after dark, even mothers prepare their daughters the only way they know: “Do always bring a condom with you”.

Sisipho (teenager): “ After school, there is nothing to do. It is boring. Now it is holidays and everybody is drinking on the streets and, just doing nothing. My mum tells me to be home before 7 PM” There are quite a lot of interference factors that make it difficult to talk about sexuality and sex within the community. First of all, in the township, there are not a lot of role models, especially for boys. There are a lot of one parent families (often with only a mum) and there is a shortage of older men (65+) in the township. In general, parents work long hours and do not have the time of knowledge to talk about these things.

Furthermore, with the elder people in the community it is not very respectful to talk and discuss personal sexuality things with. Traditionally youth have to pay respect to the elder (ukuhlonipha), what causes distance and one way communication.

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This chapter is about reframing the challenge.

You will read how the design opportunities have been the foundation for the selection of a usergroup and focus subject.

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Ideation

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3. Ideation

Connection magic The ideation stage started with the making of connections between all the research I had done. Basically, it is the analysis of everything I have heard, seen or read. The bulk of the connections will be explained by the visuals; you will read about the most project determining decisions I have made in this stage.

Logic Model of Needs The logic model of needs is based on the content from the level & category structure I have filled in while I was still in Kayamandi. The levels of analysis I have been using are intra-personal (individual), interpersonal (micro), intra-group (community, societal, meso) and intergroup (organizational, macro). Hence, with these levels I consider the personal and environmental determinants of (health) behavior. Furthermore, I have used exposure categories, based on the definition of WHO’s draft working definition of sexuality.

Sexuality is experienced and expressed in thoughts, fantasies, desires, beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviors, roles and relationships. While sexuality can include all of these dimensions, not all of them are always experienced or expressed.

Sexuality is influenced by the interaction of biological, psychological, social, economic, political, cultural, ethical, legal, historical and religious and spiritual factors (World Health Organization, Draft Working Definition, October 2002).

I have already discovered that the core of a lot of the information is sociocultural, but that it interacts with other factors. For example, the belief in myths about sexuality and fertility has a strong socio-cultural nature, but it is also highly connected to the marginal anatomy knowledge caused by poor LO education.

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A (too) wide diversity of dots As I have mentioned in the methodology, there was too much information to be layed out in one Logic Model of Needs. It needed more focus to actually have a function and offer me more oversight. Therefore I narrowed down the health problem to ‘Unsafe Sex’ as ‘behavioral aspect’, took this as starting point and found out that I could still get many dots and connections in the model.

Nevertheless, it got me going. The enormous web that once started of

as a very structured model shows the complexity of the situation in Kayamandi and how interlinked everything is.

Eventually, I have made a selection of interesting dots based on where I saw opportunity for intervention by design as well as how closely related it was to the challenge I set in the beginning of the project.

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Themes

Design opportunity Area’s 01. “ Future just happens” - self image 02. Knowledge about body & sexual actions 03.

Knowledge about family planning tools 04.

Responsibility safe sex 05. Early sexual debute & introduction of sexuality 06. Sexual moral - stigma 07. Privacy and safety in combination with sex & sexuality 08.

Coaching and support at home 09.

Private and hygienic life 10.

Discussion culture 11. Confidentiality at the clinic 12 Respect & acceptance paternity

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Nodes Then, I took all the dots with their closest connections and zoomed in on individual behavior & beliefs again by using the nodes system of Peeters (2008).

This exercise is for me more empathic than the big Logic Model of Needs, it is focussing on the connections in the users minds; everything that correspond to single thoughts, emotional associations, perceptions, cognitions, elements of processes, concepts, associations between concepts, etc. (Peeters, 2008).

Hence, a very logical model to use when having a challenge that is about creating more openess, trust and knowledge.

Worthmapping and opportunity Area’s Using both of these models, I was able to extract multiple themes with opportunity area’s. I moved the Worthmap of Gilbert Cockton to the end of the ideation stage, because it needed a bit more understanding of the endresult ia what kind of product I envisioned to design.

Continuously with making the worthmap to understand the resources, function and values of the different opportunity area’s , I started with ideating on concept frameworks to take with me to Kayamandi. I call them ‘concept frameworks’, because of the content completion had to be done in corporation with the usergroup in South-Africa. The concept framework that we have chosen in the end is the one that will be described in the next chapter ‘Reframing the Challenge’,

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Reframing the challenge Design opportunity Area’s.

THEMES & Opportunity Area’s Selection * 02.

Knowledge about body & sexual actions

How might we educate teenagers better about their anatomy?

06.

Sexual moral - stigma

How might we uplift house mums, which are the main educators of their children?

08.

Coaching and support at home

How might we establish the sexual conversation at home (including coaching and support)? * see appendix for all themes and opportunity area’s

This selection of opportunity area’s has supported me to narrow down the usergroup, the targetgroup and the core focus subject. In this chapter, I will explain which choices I have made, and how research backs this selection.

Thanks to dr. Bronvyk Van Wyck her dissertation (2015) about the experiences of adolescent girls in townships around Stellenbosch, I could find a lot of literature that, together with my own experiences, will serve as background for the reframing of my design challenge.

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The choice for girls as targetgroup “ Despite the gains since 1994 and the commitment to build a society based on human rights, equality and freedom, traditional notions of gender and gender discrimination tenaciously persist in both the private and public spheres of South African society, which tend to have a profound influence in the lives of women and girls “ (Bronvyk Van Wyck, 2015, p.iii).

Although we also see a need for interventions directed to men, boys and sexuality, we have deliberately chosen to work with women and girls in my graduation project. Having experienced the patriarchal Xhosa culture with its gender dynamics and power relations I came to the conclusions that it would be very complicate to organise and execute my second project stage with boys or men. To gain trust, to find willing men and to gain an understanding of their thinking.

Thereby, I am a woman myself, what means that I can share my own experiences, from woman to woman. Especially in another country, working with people from another culture and who have another mother tongue, it is good to have such a core characteristic in common that will immediately create a bond.

Concluding, by choosing to work with women, it would be easier to (embodied) express myself from person to person, and pass by the gender dynamics and powerrelations that are present in the patriarchal Xhosa culture.

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Menarche as of core subject of the project.

“You are now a woman, and this means that there is something you must NOT do”

(Thurén, cited by Bronvyk Van Wyck, 2015).

In Dutch we do not have a particular term for the onset of menstruation what in English is called ‘menarche’. Menarche generally symbolises femininity, sexual maturation, and in patriarchal cultures like the Xhosa-culture, girls’ sexual availability, future reproductive capability and, in some contexts, a readiness for marriage (Golub, Lee, Mensch, Bruce & Greene, cited by Bronvyk Van Wyck, 2015). It is part of the transition from puberty to adolescence; the development of secondary sexual characteristics.

Because menarche and menstruation is so central in female sexuality/feminity, we as Happy Healthy Design found it a suitable subject to design our concept around. Thereby, it is a major event for our targetgroup: adolescent girls. They just had their menarche or are waiting for it to come.

When menarche happens, girls’ become very aware that their body is changing, not always under their control and they will also be learning the restrictions that will be with them during their adult life (Britton, 1996). In general, girls try to make sense of their bodies and emotional experiences, as well as the cultural narratives about this process.

Girls living in Kayamandi live in a context of menstrual poverty, where some menstrual myths and taboos prevail (contextual deprivation), and preparation and guidance are lacking (psychosocial deprivation). This makes them experience menstruation as a anxiety provoking and negative process (Bronvyk Van Wyck, 2015).

Parents/caregivers seem to impart contradictory messages about menstruation.

On the one hand, parents tell their girls that they are now becoming women,

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while at the same time they are imparting messages of danger and vulnerability.

Additionaly, parents start to impose restrictions to comply with expected demands and norms of femininity and to increase surveillance to protect the girs from sexual threats or engagement in sexual activity.

Like Koff and Rierdan suggest (cited by Bronvyk Van Wyck, 2015): “It must seem paradoxical to be told that menstruation is normal and natural and something to be happy about”, while experiencing a curtailment on their freedom. As if you are experiencing a menstrual closet.

Don’t your social designer hands start itching already?

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(The risks of) Menstrual Poverty “Menstruation is not a personal event, but is socially and culturally embedded, thus, myths, misconceptions and taboos in society influence menstruation narratives and menstrual practices (Britton, 1996).

Crichton et. al (2013) have proposed the concept of menstrual poverty, defined as “the combination of material, contextual and psychosocial deprivations experienced by menstruating girls and women in resource-poor settings” (p.

893).

In South Africa, it seems that sexuality and reproduction are the focus of most maternal discussions with girls. However, as Bronvyk Van Wyck (2015) argues: “it is not a narrative of reproductive health, sexual agency and desire, but one that signals danger, surveillance and control for girls at the onset of menarche” (p.45).

MENSTRUAL DEPRIVATION (Crichton et. al 2013)

MATERIAL DEPRIVATION

Multiple barriers that hamper girls' ability to manage menstrual flow and include lack of access to private and hygienic sanitation facilities, and the inability to purchase adequate sanitary materials.

CONTEXTUAL DEPRIVATION

Cultural narratives, which include taboos about menstrual blook and discussing menstruation, the social expectations, norms, restrictions and gender insensitivity associated with menstruation.

PSYCHOSOCIAL DEPRIVATION

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Girls' experiences of lack of guidance, preparation, information and support prior to the onet of menarche and subsequent to menstruation.

According to the UN (United Nations ,2014) , this affects their general wellbeing, and human dignity: “Stigma around menstruation and menstrual hygiene is a violation of several human rights, most importanty of the right to human dignity, but also the right to nondiscrimitation, equality, bodily integrity, health, privacy and the right to freedom from inhumane and degrading treatment, from abuse to violence” Womens’ life should’t be ruled by their womb.

I rule !

During my exploratory research in Kayamandi I have experienced especially: 1. public toilets, filthy, unsafe, no running water, too little, no privacy, no sanitary disposel bins 2. taboo, secrecy & not talking (fear of promiscuity) 3. caregivers are unwillingly/uncomfortable to talk about menstruation, no preparation, only restrictive messages (link menstruation with sex and reproduction), tell daughters they are vulnerable, needing protection from men

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Mothers as targetgroup.

“School and NGO (sexuality) education just do the icing on the cake, parents do the mixing”

Sound familial relationships and supportive environments play a huge role in adolescents’ well-being and are associated with a range of positive outcomes, such as a healthy self-esteem, better school achievement, and lower levels of behavioral and psychological problems

Despite the prominence of relationships with peers during

adolescence, most hold similar values and norms as their parents, value their attachment to their families and regard them as main source of support.

(Hendry & Kloep, Louw & Louw, as cited by Bronvyk Van Wyk, 2015).

Generally, research has shown that parents’ attitudes to sexuality and sexual communication to their children exert significant influences on the children’s attitudes towards sexuality, as well as their initiation and participation in sexual activity, and use of contraceptives (Jaccard, Ditus & Gordon, 1998).

My exploratory research in Kayamandi and the following need assessment did not solely confirm that the need exists for female caregivers to be engaged and supported in having the sexual conversation at home, but also to uplift (unemployed) housemums. Additionally, I encountered a strong willingness from female caregivers to pass on knowledge and experiences about sexuality and reproductive health to the next generation, but that they simply do not have the assets which would enable them to do so.

Consistent with a lot of international studies, I experienced that there was often a once-off talk between mothers and daughters, that was mainly about the (technical) management of menstruation, a restrictive message and the providence of pads.

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Mothers do tell their daughters that menstruation in ‘normal’, but this message is often been snowed under the negative stories. Shefer (1999) claims that such messages of danger and possible victimisation could evoke confusion for girls and fail to empower them for sexual negotiation.

This lack of discussion about physical and emotional experience of menstruation could be attributed to the female caregivers’ lack of knowledge, the prevailing taboo’s, as well as her inclination to transmit the same negative narratives as they were taught about menstruation (Britton, Lovering & Teitelman, as cited in Bronvyk Van Wyck, 2015).

Even though this lack of discussion, for all the girls in Bronvyk Van Wyck her dissertation study (2015), mothers were still the primary source of information after the event of menarche (p.203).

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CHALLENGE Reframed How can we design for the support of female caregivers in the township of Kayamandi, South-Africa, to be more open, conďŹ dent and knowledgeable when talking about female sexuality ?

TARGET group

GIRLS adolescent

USER group

FEMALE caregivers

CONTEXT focus

MENARCHE / menstruation

In order to reduce contextual and psychosocial deprivation experienced by menstruating girls and women in resource-poor settings as townships.

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Why talk and how? “Information is no preparation”.

My time in Kayamandi and Bronvyk van Wyck her study (2015) shows that a conversation that only focusses on the biological and hygienic aspects, leaving out the experiental dimension, does not prepare girls for menstruation.

The lack of this talk about experiences, hence proper preparation, seems to evoke anxiety for girls about their bodies and bolsters misconceptions/ misunderstanding about menstruation.

Having early, open and intimate discussion with their daughters about the physical and experiental facets of menstruation, their changing bodies and romantic relationships, can foster the mother-daughter relationship, lay the foundations for a healthy self- and body-image and allay girls’ anxieties and fears about menstruation (Gillooly, as cited by Bronvyk Van Wyck, 2015).

DESIGN GOAL : Help female caregivers do the mixing.

Bronvyck Van Wyck, conclusion and recommendation: “ Parents should break the silence about girls’ and boys’ sexual desire and collaborate to promote adolescent knowledge of reproductive health matters.

Sex education shouldn’t be a once-off event about technical matters & dangers.

It has to be an open discussion about the physical and experiental aspects of menstruation as well as sex and sexuality in the context of relationships.

Such conversations with adolescent girls are imperative so that they can start developing “an assertive sexual voice, that is the ability to negotiate safely and equitable sexuality” in their future intimate relationships “.

To understand how we can help the mothers the best, we have designed a plan for a co-creation workshop, which is to be read on the next pages.

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The Co-Creation - Aims What.. is the knowledge to equip the caregives with?

The goal of first sessions is to find out what the knowledge is that we are going to equip the female caregivers with.

These sessions will be focussed on the knowledge gap when we talk about the anatomy and changes of the female body. What do the ladies know? What do they not know? What would they like to know better and which myths are spread around in Kayamandi? Together we will find out what the most important knowledge is to transfer between the two generations.

How... are we going to give this knowledge meaning?

The second part of the Co-Creation will be about how to create value or an embodiment of meaning. First we will discuss what the meaning should be: Do the ladies celebrate feminity? How do they do that or how would they like to do so? What do they see as mile stones in growing into a women?

Secondly, we will connect this meaning to the inter-generational relationship.

How... are we going to give this meaning an tangible shape?

The last sessions of the Co-Creation are creative hands-on meetings in which we are going to relate the defined meaning to a tangible object (creation of affordance). I would love to bring over some rites of other cultures, such as the menarche toolkit, to discuss how they perceive it and whether it would suit in their lifes and culture as well. The goal will be to understand what the elements are that design of the object should contain.

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CONTEXT DRIVEN TOOLKIT Goals for first design AIM first part

AIM second part

AIM third part

WHAT.. is the knowledge

HOW.. are we going to give

HOW..are we going to give

to equip the caregives with?

this knowledge meaning?

this meaning an tangible shape?

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In this chapter you will read how creative sharing has resulted in the concept of personal period care

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(Co) Creation

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4. Creation

From research to design Introduction In this chapter I will explain how the information out of the cocreation session has eventually resulted in my final concept. I will lead you through the important decisions, where design hooks and ‘ahaaa’ moments came above the surface.

What I am describing here are basically the design requirements I managed to extract from the co-creation sessions with the mamma’s and the girls. I won’t focus so much on the functioning of the creative tools, since for me they were only a tool to achieve information. (for Joes, as designer of context driven toolkit, the functioning had the emphasis) .

All the context requirement should of course also connect to the four requirements that come from my own vision as designer:

design for

UNDERSTANDING Design should be simple and easy to understand

Design should not ask for a lot of extra effort

Make sexual health education light, playful and positive

Integrate sexual health education in people their day to day life

Design is about understanding perception in order to change behavior

Capitalize on existing skillsets and people

Seperate facts from fiction - demythification

Empower youth and their confidence by working with ‘trusted’ people in Kayamandi

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First you will read about the search for the knowledge to equip the female caregivers with and what kind of meaning this knowledge could have. I will particularly give examples from my workshops with the mamma’s, because they are my direct user group and therefore the most important providers of input.

Ladies Club While I was facilitating the workshops in South Africa, Joes did some in the Netherlands with her mothers’ ladies club, who all have a background in medicin. They gave us the valuable input that it would be good to have at least the next five pillars in our workshops:

1. Secondary Sexuality Characteristics 2. Physiology 3. Experience and interpretation 4. Material management 5. Communication skills

Meaning of being a women/girl The first thing that I liked to know was what the meaning is of being a woman: what is it like to be a woman in Kayamandi and do they have positive connotations with it? When is it a joy to be a woman? Refering to the hashtags on social media, I asked the women to let me know. They gave me the following answers:

# Responsibility # Good care of my children # How to look good # How to be clean # Self-consciousness / being strong # When having children # Being a good mother

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My conclusion from our ‘joy of being a woman’ sessions is that the women felt and are above everything mothers; they do not really have another life. As mama Madiba once told me: “Women carry the responsibility of everything for their family, except the financial one. You can tell from their handbag, everything is in there! Man only wear a wallet”.

Another important insight is that the women always saw themselves in the light of and in relation to others. That didn’t surprise me at all, since the Xhosa culture is an collective culture, with Ubundu as fundamental idea “I am because we are”.

Knowledge of menstruation I immediately understood that most of the mamma’s knew what a period is, because they have been experiencing it themselves. Though, they only understand the outside physical symptoms - not what is happening inside; what is causing these symptoms and, what to do about it.

The questions they put in the question box demonstrate this perfectly:

? When you are bleeding too much, you are not stopping, why do you have pains? what helps you to use? ? Took out the womb, not menstruating anymore? ? Sometimes it takes 2 to 3 months to stop menstruating, what is going on? ? When you are in period for 2/3 weeks, is there anything wrong? ? When you are using prevention, is it right to have period or not? ? I stop menstruating when I was 30 up until at the age of 63, what is the cause? ? If you have black blood and pain, where does is come from? ? What happens when I am an old granny? Have a menstruation at age of 70 years?

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I experienced a urge for knowledge and understanding from both the women and girls in my workshops.

From the sessions with the neighbour girls, I noticed for example that they did not understand why their mothers made the link between menstruation and pregnancy. Also school hadn’t been very clear about it, they had only heard a very personal story of the LO-teacher (full with myths and personal values).

Meaning of menstruation I would like to illustrate the meaning of menstruation for the mothers with excerpts from a Play they did, as result of a session about communicating with your daughter about menarche. I had asked them to discuss in the group what the perfect conversation would be and two of every group would act out in mother and daughter role.

In line with the literature research I had done, I generally encountered a lot of the danger & restriction messages, both from women and girls. The neighbourgirls told me that they would never share their menstrual experiences with their mothers because their mothers would react very angry and think that they had lost their virginity. They did not understand why every conversation about periods immediately ends up in sex risks. In the play script below, the focus is very much on fertility and reproduction as well.

Play 1 - negative story Translated by my ‘sissie’ Nosi [ Mother: “Do you see my child, you are still young …”

“You are a woman now” “You are menstruating now” “You can become pregnant” “If you don’t use any protection you can het different types of deseases of become pregnant”

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Daughter: Even if I only sleep once with my boyfriend with my partner?

The mother tells the daughter that even once or manu times she’s no longer a virgin and he will embarass her home and family. The daughter asks her mother advice. The mother advices her that she must go to the clinic for contraceptives. The mother asks the daughter to keep her virgnity until she finishes her studies. The daughter tells her mother that she is getting peer pressure at school. The mother tells the daughter that her friends do not listen to their parents at home.

In most of our sessions in the beginning, mamma’s seem to be aware of the effect of menstruation on their body and life in general(experiences), but did not make the connection that this should be one of the messages that they had to convey to their daughters as well. “ ]

That is why I was quite pleased to behold the next play, where the body of the daughter was more central in the story and in that sense more nuetral than the one before.

Play 2 - less negative story [ “ This is a vagina, the tubes and the blood. Now I saw that blood on your skirt, so that means that you have your period. Next month you will have that blood again on the same time of the month. You will have the blood again, and if not, then there is a problem. You have to take care of your body, I saw your breast coming up now and you must love yourself.

You must know that you are the flower of the nation, you must not sleep around, there are many deseases around. HIV, it is killing. STD/STI/Gonnorea, there are a lot of sexual deseases. You must love your body and not sleep around. You can wait, you can stay away from the boys and have a bright future. They are who destroy our lives, the men.

Take care of your body, you must always feel proud. Never sell your body! “ ]

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IDEA !

In this play, the mamma’s also say that taking care of yourself as a young woman is important, this could be a nice ‘wrapping’ of the concept - how do you take care for yourself before, after or during having a period? Are their products (objects, foods, activities) that can support you with this and what a mum can offer to her daughter? And could this concept guide the mamma’s to have a more neutral conversation about the experience of menstruation?

Concluding from my own field research and literature review, what seems to be needed is a combination of biology/anatomy knowledge, an understanding of how to provide/transfer appropriate menstrual education and how to guide and support their daughters. .. With as side goal to push the negative narratives to the back.

I already mentioned how women see themselves in relationship to others and how caring is an important part of the joy of being a woman. Taking care of your own body and the one of your daughter is a beautiful and suitable meaning for this knowledge.

Practical problems To move to the ‘operational side’ of this idea I asked the mamma’s to think about at least four practical problems when having a conversation with their daughter about their female bodies, period symptoms and experiences.

This practical problem discussion gave me a very good insight in the perception of the ladies. Again, they immediately related it with ‘a talk about sex’. I constantly had to remind them that this was specifically about period symptoms and if the practical problems they told me were still counting in this smaller context of ‘period symptoms and experiences’. Surprisingly, most of the time not. For me this is a sign that talking about just the body (openess) is a nice building block towards more openess about sex and sexuality. It is something

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the ladies dare to talk about, but not necessarily do at the moment.

Talking about experienced & self reflection A difficulty I came accross is that the mamma’s had a very tough time to impersonate themselves in their daughters. Something that is, in my opinion, essential to empathize with another. Therefore, I asked the ladies to do a context sketch that gave very clear hints about the fact that they and their daughters have grown up in different worlds and what made them reflect on their own thoughts and knowledge as well.

What I learned here is that active self-reflection is essential for the

mamma’s to compare their own situation to the one of their daughters and to be able to share experiences. The concept design or workshop iteration should definately have something in it that sparks this. In the following answers you read how the women position themselves in three different roles and moments in time (as child, as mother and as their daughter).

1. What did you know as a girl of the age of 12 about periods?

“Scared, I thought I was going to die. I was ashamed as I was only thinking that a person who has blood is someone who slept with boys” “When I was nine, I got my period and I was very scared to tell my parents. But it happened at school and was seen by one of my friends and she went to the staff room to ask for pads. On that day I was so quiet. And also on the day I had a lot of cramps. I decided to tell my friend and she gave me asperin, but my mother adviced me not to sleep with boyfriend, must keep my virginity” “At my age I knew nothing”

2. What did you tell your daughter about periods?

“To tell my daughters to behave themselves and to stay away from sex untill they get

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married or are old anough to make the right decisions. Because once you have sex without protection, you fall pregnant. Importance of virginity.”

“My child was free to ask anything about menstruation, periods as they were taught at school. I add more advice when she got her period like when she goes to school she has to take two pads to change. Never have sex when she is in her periods, then it is easy to fall pregnant. “ 3. What do you think your daughter knows about periods?

“Yes, they do know a lot from television and peer education. They are exposed to so much. I don’t they know what I know as the mother, like how to use pads, where to buy, how to sit and most of all that they are going through puberty life. Their body is ready to conceive a child “.

“My daughter knows a little bit about menstruation, because they were taught at school at the age of 8. She did not shock when she got the period.”

Conclusions There is a lack of conversations with positive narratives and sharing of experiences about menstruation. Overall, the mamma’s like to talk about their bodies and symptoms in the workshops, but they tend to not talk about this with their daughters. Though, they appreciate caring for themselves and their children, that is when they feel the most like a woman. Hence, the message or meaning behind the concept could be one of taking care, understanding and feeling proud.

The question that is left is how are we going to give this knowledge and meaning a tangible shape?

In the workshops, we also shared our thoughts about remedies for period symptoms, which is a part of taking care of yourself while menstruating. The

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Cape of South-Africa is a Floral Kingdom and the Xhosa people still use a lot of natural medicin (oa. with traditional healers). The mamma’s told me in a very passionate way about the combination of herbs and health. This inspired me hugely to work with the local nature and remedies in my concept. And, I think that a mutual interest from both designer and usergroup is a must for a succesful end result.

The making of personal period care seemed to be a logical follow up concept. With natural, local ingredients that are known for soothing personal period symptoms. Something that contains the conversation with its knowledge and its meaning, but is also functional. … I was long enough in Kayamandi to understand that something with no function would be ruled out by something that has a function (caused by poverty, lack of space & time).

My neighbourgirls told me interesting stories about their hygiene rituals and how they still had a lot of questions about it. For example, they don’t wash their panties with blood in the washing machine and they use their own bar of soap when they have their periods because of the fear of spreading germs.

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Although soap seems to have a negative connotation here - when you have your period you are impure & you have to wash yourself, my creative fluids started to flow when I heard this. Soap could be the perfect start product of the personal period care line:

It would be an opportunity to explain hygienic and material care; It should be explained as product that should especially be used when you experience your period symptoms (to be extra nice to your body when having your period); It is a carrier of the local (medicinal) herbs & essential oils; The process is easy enough to make by the mamma’s themselves, and fast and fun enough to use in the workshop; Soap bars are familiar products in Kayamandi The creation of something (soap) is an empowerment tool. It shows knowledge & making skills

Not importantly, it suited my four personal design requirements very well.

The soap process is easy, fun and positive. The result is a functional product dat fits in the women and girls their day to day life. It is built on an extensive study about perception and it works via mothers, who are the main source of information regarding do menarche and menstruation.

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To test the feasibilty and viability of a personal period care (for now: soap), we have done several pilot tests.

In the workshop, in the streets of Kayamandi and a Mothers’ Day Offer via our website.

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Testing

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5. Testing

Workshop, Street and website Now the tangible product was there, it could be tested and I the start of the design of a system/service could officially begin!

We had a couple of testcases in our minds to check out the first signs of viability and feasibility:

In the workshop as tool

Can the process of making soap convey our envisioned knowledge and meaning?

1.

AIM

In the township via a pop-up store as product for sale

In the Netherlands via our website as Mothers Day Oer

Possibility of selling soap in township without workshop

Interest in Personal Period Care Our initiative Purchase variables

SOAP test

2.

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3.

Workshop We made the soap process part of the workshop, as that it elaborated on the homework about the period symptoms and natural, local remedy discussions.

Based on this, I had made two period symptom - herb/oil diagrams that I hang on the whiteboard and draped on the table. The ladies surrounded the table with the ingredients and, with some advices from us about quantity and volume, they started to make their combinations by theirselves. It was an organised chaos; it helped a lot that all the ingredients had their own place on the table (indicated by name & color). By touching and following and smelling and checking, the ladies started to be engaged in the activity.

The soap making was actually the mixing of the soap with the basic material that we had made ourselves (the mix of lye, oils and water). They mixed it with their personal combi of additions gave their soap a shape by pressing and turning. Only from this moment, the soap became ‘3D’ - maybe next time we should take an example what the result could look like. Anyways, the order or first choosing the ingredients and then adding the mix (in soap recipes it is the other way around most of the times) was smart (especially time management wise).

I loved the fact that the women were very motivated and serious to make a beautiful soap that was truly based on the symptoms of their daughters. Some of them played around, but the majority only chose the ingredients that linked to the symptoms of their daughters.

The beautiful thing about the soap (making) is that it starts of with their daughters bodies, then it follows to ingredients of the product and it ends with their daughters body as well (using the soap).

Some mamma’s and facilitators asked if we could also do a session with the daughters of the mamma’s. First of all to show them that their mamma’s are truly experts, but also because some (especially grand) mamma’s found it

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still difficult to talk about it. Their might be an opportunity of doing the soap creation together OR that there will be some kind of ceremony OR that the packaging/information with the soap gives clues about this.

Lovetogive told us about the opportunity to establish mini soap companies as well - mamma’s as entrepeneurs after having done the workshop. I think this is very interesting, especially when the education (in the workshop and with the soap) is still done by us/experts. The entrepeneurs could be ambassadors of the education part as well.

When contemplating about the knowledge and the meaning, the most striking for me is that the women didn’t mention reproductive of restrictive matters anymore. Perhaps because the link between the body symptoms and the ingredients was so direct, perhaps because the whole activity did not have any relation with sex and boys.

Flowers of Kayamandi Personal Period Care

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“The Cape Floristic Region is a floristic region located near the southern tip of South Africa. It is the only floristic region of the Cape (South African) Floristic Kingdom, and includes only one floristic province, known as the Cape Floristic Province.

The Cape Floristic Region, the smallest of the six recognised floral kingdoms of the world, is an area of extraordinarily high diversity and endemism, and is home to more than 9 000 vascular plant species, of which 69 percent are endemic. Much of this diversity is associated with the fynbos biome, a Mediterranean-type, fire-prone shrubland. The economical worth of fynbos biodiversity, based on harvests of fynbos products (e.g. wildflowers) and eco-tourism, is estimated to be in the region of R77 million a year. Thus, it is clear that the Cape Floristic Region has both economic and intrinsic biological value as a biodiversity hotspot. “ (Odendaal, Haupt, & Griffiths, 2008)

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Township To check out the possibility of selling the soap in Kayamandi, without the workshop attached to it, we made a batch of soap to sell on the street: one for stress, one for moodswings and one for cramps. We had local support, from our friend Confi, who has a huge network of women in the township. We made them very cheap, so that the price wouldn’t be a factor in the decision whether to purchase a soap or not.

This was the first time that we came out with the name ‘Flowers of Kayamandi’, and we noticed that people found it important that is was a locally made product, although the link was not very clear from the poster. The line ‘for women, from women’, was cheesy, but catchy - it attracted the right sexe.

Most women who came to our pop-up store, were immediately searching for the soap that suited their body the best. They recognised the ingredients and were very keen to smell and touch. We understood that, where ever we are going to sell it, there should always be an opportunity to sense the soap before purchase.

The most women gave us the feedback that they found it very good that the soap was natural and hand made. Nowadays they bought way too much chemicals.

Next to checking out the interest for buying period soap, it was a nice openess exercise as well! We learned that women were not very shy to talk about it (exactly like in the workshops), although there was a lot of laughing and giggeling. Even some men came to buy the soap for stress - for themselves or for their girlfriends.

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Confi her network helped us to sell the last couple of soaps; we went past the doors to check if anybody would be interested. When we told her we were very graceful to have had her on our side, she told us our white skin probably also helped selling. Our color is apparently linked to quality.

That brings us to another, more ethically related issue. At that time, we were not sure yet whether the soap her ingredients would really help soothen the symptoms we wrote on the wrapping. Thereby, it missed the part of education that we share in the workshops. We noticed that the women in the township aren’t as critical as we are used to in the Western world. They tend to have more faith in anything that could possibly help them and therefore I understood we have to be enormously careful with our message and communication.

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Mothers’ Day. Via the digital way, we reached out to a completely different user: daughters in the Netherlands. On our instagram, facebook and website, we communicated a Motherday’s’ offer. This usertest offered us the opportunity to test interest for the initiative, the personal period care and soap, as well as to learn what it encompasses to work from Kayamandi for a usergroup somewhere else.

While the pop-up store in the township could be relatively simple and a bit wishy-washy, we liked our campaign for the Netherlands to be smooth and professional to attract people’s eye. It was the first time (expect for our regular Facebook and Instagram updates), that we showed our project to the world; you can never make a second first impression.

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We sold even more than we expected and most of all, we had mothers and daughters to evaluate our product and service experience with. “ Niet eerder de kans gehad om een reactie te geven op jullie mail. Mijn moeder vond het een leuk moederdag cadeau. Ze is geen vrouw van vele woorden, maar bedankte mij met een dikke knuffel. Een mooi gebaar als je het mij vraagt.

Het verhaal achter het zeepje vond ze mooi, net als de gedachte dat wij met dit cadeau deze vrouwen/mama’s en jullie mooie concept kunnen steunen. “ -- Esther Stapelbroek “This is a business address, which I would like to use because the bars will be a gift for my wife. Could you please include some product information for my wife, but also for one of the company’s that I am working for; www. houseofproducts.nl. So maybe we can do some more business together. “ -- Bart Geers Ik denk dat lavendel ontspanning kan geven, de zachtheid van de zeep je kan laten ontspannen, de tijd die je neemt om te zepen ook verlichting brengt. Dat vind ik ook het sterke van jullie concept. Ik vind het jammer om het alleen tot een wel/niet werkend kruid terug te brengen.

-- Annie Hudepohl

From our Mother’s Day Offer, I learned that the combination of ‘do good’ and a product is incredibly strong. A present for yourself or someone in your own life ánd a present for someone who really needs it.

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Which soap did you get?

1 fatigue

60%

2

cramps

20%

3

moodswings

20%

Was it a good choice?

1 yes 2

20%

no

Did you use it already?

1 yes 2

80%

60% 40%

no

How do you judge the soap?

5.00 Do you believe that the ingredients soothen your symptoms?

1 other 40% 2

no

20%

3 4 5

not really

20% 20% 00%

sometimes yes

How much would you pay for a product of Flowers of Kayamandi 1 2-5 euro 60% 2

5-8 euro

20%

3 4 5

other

20% 00% 00%

>10 euro 8 to 10 euro

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This chapter will show how I position Flowers of Kayamandi in the market. I will show you a selection of what we are working on with regard to the soft side of business, such as value propositions and service experiences.

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Service Strategy

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Service Strategy

The soft side of business For me, it felt like a logical step to work out the soft side of the business plan before starting with the hard side. Like Jempie Moenst from ‘Dreambased Innovation’ argued in his lecture about creative innovation, we are in an economy of experience and tranformation, the relevance of our concept is in the time and the positive change we offer our customer.

Next to our experience in Kayamandi, we figured out that we needed input from business and and communication experts about how to position our concept, what the exact value is for our various users and what our unique propositions are.

Targetgroup The first step was to clarify our users/customers. Who exactly are we targeting and what are their characteristics? Interviews with women and girls, persona’s and (participatory) research taught me lots about where we had to lay the emphasis on. For example, via our digital platform, mothers and daughters can together compile their own personal period soap and by purchasing they support the workshops in South-Africa as well. There are two propositions here, ‘openess & modern ritual’ and ‘do good’. From the activities described, I became to understand that the ‘do good’ proposition is a safer and better startingpoint and trigger to make people interested in the modern ritual and purchase as well.

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Emelie (40 yrs)

Lynn (13 yrs)

Emelie has a HBO degree in marketing & communication and is working for already 10 years for a well known advertising agency in the Netherlands.

She loves her work, although it is often diďŹƒcult to combine her full time job with her small family.

Emelie feels very guilty when she has to overwork when she has promised Lynn or Job to have for example dinner together.

Emelie loves to scroll through lifestyle blogs on her ipad or notebook to spot new trends and things concerning lifestyle, beauty, health and spirituality.

Now Lynn is a bit older, they are increasingly interested in the same things, which makes Emelie appreciate her motherhood even more.

Lynn has always been a ‘laatbloeier’ and Emelie found it hard to guess what her daughter knows and wants to know about sexuality.

Lately, Lynn had her menarche and Emelie realised that she had never

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Rich - Walking - Stress - Here & There, Everywhere - Good Mum - Sharing Time - Atheist - Yoga - Wine - Spoil Lynn - Balancing mum/friend role Shopping - Internet Information Connection - Body Consciouss - Green - Critical Consumer - Sustainability Original - Individual - Time Pressure Blogs - Sexy - Do Good - Fun - Modern - Hip - Success - Beauty - Spiritual Intelligence - Children - Interested Coffee - How to achieve happiness? Culture - Open - Comfortable - Health - Living/styling - Network

sat down with Lynn to give her a proper period preparation talk.

A shame, because Emelie wants Lynn to be consciouss about her body and proud of it.

Amelie felt that the menarche of her daughter did more to her than she would have thought - her girl is starting to grow into a real woman now.

She has seen the Youtube video’s about the menarche parties in the USA with cakes, glitters and vagina’s, which is a bit much for her liking.

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Business Modelling At the moment, it is a core focus how we are going to make the Dutch connection work. For more publicity, but also for establishing a flourishing social enterprise.

To get an idea how the propositions are positioned in a businessmodel, I have filled in the business model canvas and discussed it with experts as Lu Yuan and Esther Gierveld from Van Maes Merkversterkers. Because of their feedback I understood that it is essential to take a stand - and to be as specific as possible.

From the business canvas that you can see in the illustration, we are busy taking it to the next level. The mother-daughter relation is our starting point and at the moment we are trying to make this the central aspect of our Dutch connection - the digital platform.

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To understand our proposition better, we are going to take the next steps in the business modelling:

1. Key activities

Connecting mother & daughter

Transfer of knowledge

Inspiration

Addition of resources that will be used to achieve this activity.

2. Value proposition

Get our ‘why’ very clear - what do we want to achieve with this

initiative

A central message makes it easier to make and level propositions

Definition of core values and link them with targetgroups

(African & Dutch market is different) > think about breaking taboo’s a

and ‘do good’

3. Customer Segment

Dutch market - creation of a difference between the commercial and

emotional goal. (sales & bonding/ritual).

4. Customer Relationship

Think about more opportunities:

- workshops in NL?

- sales points

- platforms about women and taboos

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Key Partners NGO’s South Africa Netherlands Producers Soap Ingredients Post Companies Content Providers/experts for workshop Sexuologists Rutgers Communication experts Van Maes Merkversterkers

Key Activities

Value Propositio

Workshops

Personalized Care

Soap Productions Composition Shipping Distribution Packaging

‘Do Good’ - Social Im

Digital workshop Online Sales Events

Jan (network SA)

Creating Openess

Conversation starter

Bonding Mum & Da

Innovative Social De Menarche Present

Local & Natural Ingr Modern (digital ánd

Key resources Knowledge Sociology Human Geography Communication Education Design NGO’s Women Network Container (soap factory) SA Customers NL

Cost Structure Rent container Purchase ingredients soap Marketing Website (sales & software) Workshop Material Facilitators Soap

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Sustainable Breaking Taboo’s

Customer Relationship

on

Social Media

mpact

Events Dutch Design Week Geluksroute

r & supporter

Website

Customer Segments Linda. vrouw Happinezz vrouw (bewust, druk, hip, verbonden, origineel, middenklasse/hogere klasse) Daughters

aughter

esign

rediĂŤnts physical) ritual

Channels Social Media Websales Bloggers Post companies Magazines Design awards Eko Shops Webshops

Revenue Streams Stimuleringsfondsen Website sales Awards Investments friends/family Crowd Funding

FLOWERS OF KAYAMANDI personal period care.

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Service experience and Service blue print The blueprint is an operational tool that describes the nature and the characteristics of the service interaction in enough detail to verify, implement and maintain it.

It is based on a graphical technique that displays the process functions above and below the line of visibility to the customer: all the touchpoints and the back-stage processes are documented and aligned to the user experience.

(servicedesigntools.org, 2016)

To understand the various components of the system, I have worked out a service blue print for both the workshopsessions as the digital workshop.

I realized that there are a lot of small developments that are getting lost orHHD no Digital Platform Service Blue Print

attention while working on the big obvious steps.

Physical Evidence Customer Action

Front Stage Interaction

Marketing channels as FB Find out about Flowers of Kayamandi

Social Media Links // Advertisements

C U

‘Do

I In ‘s

Articles // movies Back Stage Interaction

Support Process

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Updates of project or products //Offers

General marketing &communication Plan

Upd

Pr

General website

Digital Workshop

Tips & Tricks

Buy & Donate

Updates Shipping + Prod.

Receiving Package

Click, Scroll, Understand

Daughter, Mother & Ipad interaction

Fill in symptoms Give Advice Receive Advice

Fill in personal information & selection soap

Open email Read, Click, Check, Go to Website

Open package Be Happy :)

o Good Vibe’

Individual nteraction screening’

dates website Google Analytics

UI/UX/ rogramming partners

Answer & Select

Purchase with IDEAL

line of

Automatic guide through workshop

Automatic personalization based on input

Logic follow up

Easy fill out options

Email in inbox

Package on doormat

Interaction

IDEAL possibility line of

Logarythms Database of - symptoms -tips & tricks

Tips and Tricks saved in database

Personal information saved in database

Email is linked to personal information in database

Post delivery service

Visibility

line of

UI/UX/ Programming partners

Excell (?)

IDEAL/ Squarespace

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Email service Cosmetics legislation

DHL/TNT/..

Internal Interaction

Ethics & Law. Soap is not like a rock or a piece of plastic. It is something that people use on their bodies and therefore it has to be safe.

If we manufacture or sell cosmetic products in the Netherlands, we must comply with the European Cosmetics Regulation. Necessary information that we have to use as requirements in the next iteration of our soaps or any kind of personal period product.

Conclusion Our system is not the easiest one. It has parts in South-Africa, parts in the Netherlands, a workshop, a product, various stakeholders, comsumers etc. etc.

What our next step is to simplify it as much as possible by repeatedly going back to the why that we are doing this. To get our value propositions straight in order to build onto a social enterprise with an great service รกnd an unbeatable business model

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EUROPEAN COSMETIC REGULATIONS (EU-Lex, 2016)

Safety evaluation

Product information

Product composition Proof of the effect referred to on the product label

Product safety

Labelling

Notification

Animal testing

Manufacturers or importers of cosmetics must be able to demonstrate that their products are safe

The purpose of the product The quantity The manufacturer's details

Before import it into the European Union, you must send a notification to the European Commission Portal.

Strict rules apply to: Carrying out animal tests involving cosmetics or their ingredients, or having such tests carried out.

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Practicalities

Soap, Factory & digital workshop In this chapter I will briefly discuss the ‘practicalities’ of the system. How do we make the soap? What does the envisioned soap factory look like and how does the digital workshop exactly work?

I have made the deliberate decision to not add the workshop in this session, because this was Joes Janmaat her effort. It does belong to the service as part of the education of the mamma’s

1. Soap Our personal period soap is tailor made, based on a woman or girl her personal period symptoms. The base of the soap is the usual combination of fat, water and lye. The main ingredients are essential oils, dried herbs and plants, all locally produced in the Cape of South-Africa. At the moment we haven’t added any chemicals or preservatives to the soap.

The range of ingredients we have linked to the period symptoms are based on the mamma’s input in the workshops, a literature study and information out of meetings with an South-African Horticulturalist, who was working at the botanical garden of the Stellenbosch university.

Our main ingredient are essential oils. Essential oils (also known as volatile oils) are the basic materials of aromatherapy. They are made from fragrant essences found in many plants. These essences are made in special plant cells, often under the surface of leaves, bark, or peel, using energy from the sun and elements from the air, soil, and water. If the plant is crushed, the essence and its unique fragrance are released (PubMed Health, 2016) Because we are making soap with a hot process, we are able to keep the health benefits of the oils that reach people through inhalation and rubbing

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on the skin. Aromatherapy is the therapeutic use of essential oils (also known as volatile oils) from plants (flowers, herbs, or trees) for the improvement of physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. (PubMed Health, 2016).

Making soap is an art, and chemical process. We still have to gain a lot of practical and theoretical knowledge to make the perfect soap that looks good, smells good and contains the essentail oil in such a way that it maintains their health benefits for a longer period.

We found ourselves lucky to be in the position of having valuable partners in soap making, horticulturalism and medicin to help us reach the next step.

Nevertheless, I would like to stress here again that soap is a tool for education and openess and a product to take some extra care of yourself, when you need it the most.

We are aware that some symptoms can’t be soothed by soap (aromatherapy), and therefor we would like what other products would fit in the personal period care line that can. We are especially thinking about tea, body oils and food.

A different combination of personal period symptoms will not only result in a certain mix of ingredients, but also in a certain shape. At the moment we are exploring which shapes are possible based on the molding method, costs, and practical requirements for users in Kayamandi. For example, the girls often have to wash themselves in a tub and do not have anything to lay there soap on.

Hence, we designed a hole in our current soap to put a string through to hang the soap around their body or something else.

It would be amazing if we could explore shapes with the ladies in

South-Africa, we see opportunities in vacuum-forming and silicon molding.

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2. Soap Factory The soap will be made in the workshops and our soap factory in the township of South Africa. We have plans to design a mobile factory - the size of a small food-truck - to go to NGO’s with for the workshops and do demonstrations.

We already got permission to use a container in a central part of Kayamandi for the static soap factory. Depending from our business model, we will work with women who have been part of the workshops. They will not only be small entrepreneurs, but also ambassadors of our initiative.

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3. Digital platform The digital platform is how we reach the world outside Kayamandi for now.

It encompasses a mini workshop for mother and daughter to openly discuss menstrual matters in a fun way, while they simultaneously compile their own tailer made soap. Additionally, it is an information channel about our project and ‘of the shelf’ personal period products can be purchased.

The digital workshop is designed for the tablet. Tablets are suitable for multiple users than computers and are mobile. In the digital workshop, mother and daughter lay the tablet inbetween them and go sit oppositive of each other.

Face to Face. Both of the women will answer the same questions, which are composed in such a way that conversation is stimulated. In the end the soap that fits their body can be bought.

The digital workshop is still a proof of concept (Invision Wireframe)

and at the moment we are testing it with teenagers and mothers to improve it.

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