A routine school outing in 2022 turned into the start of a movement for Kuyasa Combined School learner Anelisiwe Valuvalu.
It was 2022 when she and her fellow Interact Club members visited Port Alfred High School. There, they learned about reusable sanitary towels made from pineapple leaf fibres — a product developed in nearby Bathurst that could change the lives of township girls struggling to afford menstrual products.
Sitting in the audience, Valuvalu couldn’t shake the thought: could the solution to a long-standing problem in Nemato and beyond be just 12km away?
After the presentation, she approached the woman behind the innovation, Candy Androliakos, to explain just how valuable it could be for her community. Androliakos handed her samples to take back to her peers — and the young learner wasted no time in spreading the word.
“I immediately knew it was an incredible product,” Valuvalu recalls. “You can’t always afford normal sanitary towels, so to be able to reuse them makes such a difference.”
Growing up in a home where both parents were unemployed, she knew the struggle personally. She remembers her own embarrassment when her period started unexpectedly during June exams, staining her pale blue school uniform and forcing her to rush home to change.
Now 19 and studying foundational-phase education at Fort Hare University, Valuvalu is an official ambassador for Leafline. She’s even planning to host a campus event to introduce her fellow students to the product.
“When you find something that has been helpful to you, and realise you are not the only one in this situation, you have to reach out to others,” she says. “I am not going to stop. This experience has helped me grow. It’s about helping others, not just looking after myself.”
Her determination is backed by big-name support. SPAR Eastern Cape, through its #EndPeriodPoverty and Petals campaigns, has partnered with Androliakos for years — inspiring shoppers to donate over 14 million packs of feminine hygiene products to NGOs locally and abroad since 2019.
Androliakos, credited as the first in the world to use pineapple leaf fibres for soft, breathable, washable sanitary towels, still remembers the moment Valuvalu ran after her, insisting the product reach township girls.
“Since then she’s taken it upon herself to get involved with our projects,” she says. “She’s really good at what she does and passionate about the cause.”
In South Africa, around seven million women are affected by period poverty, with one in three learners missing up to five days of school every month due to a lack of menstrual products. Thanks to young champions like Valuvalu, that statistic could one day be a thing of the past.
Author: Coetzee Gouws, Full Stop Communication
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