How will you break the stigma around menstruation through educating others while providing services to those who are marginalized with design?
Research and Insight
Being a women of POC myself, I have experienced and seen how privilege works in everyday life. One of the privileges that did not realize I had was that I was able to comfortably experience menstruation through the simple fact: I can afford it.
For research I conducted in person interviews with women from all backgrounds and class levels. Women from different walks of life, age, and cultural backgrounds. This decision was made purposefully to ensure I gather data from a variety of sources and my findings would not be biased.
Overall Conclusions:
- Menstruation is a luxury – sanitary products are not free and are costly
- There is not enough education and talk about menstruation – women feel ashamed
- Being able to stay clean and hygienic is a concern for all women
Ideation
Questions that I asked myself:
- Who is affected the most when it comes to not having access to sanitary products?
- Who is always overlooked?
- Why do they not have access and it is an easy fix?
All these questions lead me to my target demographic: Homeless Women
Below outlines how I decided to help homeless women of Toronto to gain access to sanitary products and start a conversation towards ending the Homeless Period.
User Experience Flow
The outcome of this campaign will spark a discussion and bring sanitary products to homeless women. The interactive campaign incorporates printed posters and augmented reality. The printed posters highlight the myths people believe about periods; these will create a shock and trigger a reaction from women. At the end of the experience non-homeless women will be given an easy link to donate sanitary products straight to those in need.
Visual Design
Augmented Reality
Final Thoughts
I developed this interactive campaign to tackle the barriers that homeless women face with dealing with their periods. Women who are homeless are known as the hidden homeless because they are capable of hiding their state of homelessness by staying in contact with friends and family better.
Menstruation is already a taboo subject people are uncomfortable talking about but with the added pressure of homelessness it is completely forgotten. Most of the time society does not remember that women on the streets also bleed. The barriers these women face are not only mental but physical as well. They lack access to sanitary products and public washrooms which forces them to feel more isolated in the homeless system.
Hence my campaign title, They Bleed Too.
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