By Jacqueline Holloway
Love was in the air last week as everyone celebrated Valentine’s Day. Khutliso Daniels Secondary School did so as well, but not in the way you would think. The school hosted Sophumelela Youth Development Program (SYDP) to come and speak to their thirty eight grade 12’s.
They host this event every year to teach males about menstruation and how to care for the girls they know. Their aim was to break the stigma about menstruation as well as to teach them that relationships have more than one dimension.
The event included talks by the founder and chairperson of SYDP, Sophumelela Ketelo, as well as Gcobisa Sinovuyo Dumeko, who is in charge of mentoring within SYDP, and Mafa Bavuma, the co-host of BEE and host of Laphuma Ikhwezi from Umhlobo Wenene FM. To commemorate Valentine’s Day, the SYDP handed out sanitary pads to all of the matrics. They focused especially on the males, with the intended outcome of the boys giving the pads to their female classmates.
