Born and raised in Dar es Salaam, Ziyaan Virji first came into contact with the topic of menstruation when he discovered a documentary on Facebook titled India’s Menstruation Man. Watching this documentary led to a discussion with his mother about her experience with menstrual hygiene. Ziyaan discovered that when she was younger living in India, she was amongst the 500 million people that do not have proper access to menstrual hygiene products. The extensive research he conducted inspired him to design and make his very own reusable sanitary pad as his IB “Personal Project” in tenth grade studying at the Aga Khan Academy in Mombasa, Kenya. After completing this year-long project, he reflected on his work and realized that he wanted to continue working on solving the issue of “period poverty” and making the project sustainable beyond just a school project.
Building on his momentum, Ziyaan founded his own organization, Affordable and Accessible Sanitation for Women (AASW). The organization works closely with local communities to provide them with sanitary packages, conducting workshops discussing menstrual hygiene, and stitching workshops. By working with different school groups in local communities, AASW helps break taboos regarding menstruation. So far, AASW has provided 2,500 menstruators with access to menstrual hygiene products and has had 400,000 engagements on social media platforms. Their aim for this year is to provide approximately 5,000 more menstruators with access to the products.
More recently during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ziyaan continues to support the communities around him. In Mombasa, he and his team raised money to produce 600 reusable masks to distribute to people with disabilities. They are still working on this initiative and plan to distribute 1,900 more. In May, AASW and their partner Operation Period also launched the first ever International Period Month celebrating Menstrual Hygiene Day. Their aim for the month was to “Share, Create and Donate,” which was promoted through a short film titled Bleed. The team hosted more than 50 virtual events, distributing over 1,500 sanitary packages in Tanzania and Kenya and raising funds to support essential workers during the pandemic. Along with this, Ziyaan also joined Helping Hands Tanzania and is on the board of directors. With this organization, he has helped provide personal protective equipment to frontline workers and has helped improve hygiene for orphanages.
Ziyaan feels that the younger generations are the ones who are “pioneering social change around the world.” From a young age, Ziyaan has felt that being kind to everyone is an ethical principle with the highest significance. He also believes in “respecting each other, no matter what religion or background we come from.” The Diamond Jubilee theme of ‘Social Conscience in Islam’ has also inspired him to address the issue of menstruation.
Most recently, along with the rest of his cohort at school, Ziyaan has started an initiative to raise money to provide other students with an education at the Aga Khan Academy. So far, they have raised more than $32,000 and are continuing to raise money.
His wisdom for today's youth is, “as young people, we are not only leaders of tomorrow, but leaders of today. We are the generation of change and it is our responsibility as young people to create the change we want to see in this world, no matter how small or big it is. I believe tomorrow never comes, so we should start today and start now. Nothing should stop you from bringing change.” Regarding raising awareness about mentruation he says, “The menstrual movement just like any other movement is a collective one, so it is so important that when you start something you work on collaboration and not competition.It is important to recognize that you don’t work in a vacuum and that working with one another can create more of a lasting and meaningful impact.”
Because of his efforts towards addressing period poverty, Ziyaan was awarded the Diana Award in 2019, was featured on BBC Africa, was the ‘We are Family Foundation’s Global Teen Leader’ for 2019 and announced a $15,000 partnership with DTB Kenya to help 2,500 girls. This fall, Ziyaan will be attending the University of British Columbia and will be pursuing a Bachelor of Commerce. Ziyaan hopes “to continue [my] journey of being a social entrepreneur, make period poverty and stigma a thing of the past, and leave a legacy in which [I have] left a lasting impact on the lives of others, no matter how big or small.”
