BRILLIANT, PERIOD!

Asonele has created an online platform that promotes free and easy access to sexual healthcare and menstrual dignity for 'young women and girls in SA

- MELON RADEBE

BEING a mom to two tween girls means she knows just how crucial access to sexual and reproductive healthcare is. It can decrease teenage pregnancies, reduce the highschool dropout rate and prevent sexually transmitted infections. 

Yet it’s not always easy for teens to get access to the vital information they need.

And this is precisely why Asonele Kotu has developed a virtual one-stop shop offering health and contraceptive services to young women across SA. 

Through her FemConnect website and app, girls and women can speak to accredited healthcare providers to answer questions they’re too afraid to ask. They can also access family planning resources and donate and receive sanitary products. 

The app won first place at the 2019 Africa App Challenge and last year Asonele (34) was featured on the BBC’s 100 Women, a global list of inspirational women. “I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was amazing because we’d gone to the level where we were being recognised beyond our country. It was validating,” she tells YOU. 

FemConnect continues to grow and has seen web traffic from China, America, the United Kingdom and West Africa. 

But because some girls in SA don’t have access to the internet, Asonele, who lives in Rondebosch, Cape Town, has taken her services to Western Cape schools. 

FemConnect hosts interactive workshops and just like on the website and app, girls can ask consultants questions and are told where to access the information and services they need. 

Through these school visits, Asonele has discovered there are still many myths and misconceptions around menstruation. In some communities girls are still stigmatised when they have their period.