Minister Marais welcomes Gen-XX Dignified Experiences campaign launch

Together with Western Cape Provincial Parliament Deputy Speaker Beverley Schafer, Member of Provincial Parliament, Wendy Kaizer-Philander and valued stakeholders, Minister Anroux Marais joined gen-XX as they launched their Dignified Experiences campaign yesterday.

Gen-XX, short for generation female, is a South African organization standing in the gap and fighting the war on dignified experiences for women through hygienic menstrual cups and educational awareness. The project is one aspect of addressing a sense of worthiness amongst our youth, who are indeed our future female leaders. However, in order to engage them about other dignified experiences as women, we must first teach them that they are worthy of having a dignified period experience every month.

As wellbeing and dignity are strategic priorities of the Western Cape Government, Minister Marais wholeheartedly thanked gen-XX, led by the Founder and CEO, Tanya Roux and proud sponsors of our Tornados Provincial Netball Team for actively assisting us in our mutual objectives as their vision really is about teaching women, from a young age or from any age, that a dignified experience – dignified periods, dignified relationships, dignified friendships, dignified working environments, to name a few is not beyond her reach, it is not reserved for a select few and it is not based on her social standing. Teaching her that a dignified experience is not only her right, but more importantly, her right to define for herself.

At the launch Minister Marais said, “gen-XX has already made a meaningful impact on educating and guiding women on dignified experiences, as they have generously sponsored our Western Cape Tornados team, which I firmly believe has empowered both their individual and collective performance as one of our official provincial netball teams.

As we now gear up to our Women in Sport Indaba in August, I look forward to partnering with gen-xx to collaboratively address dignified experiences in the spaces of cultural affairs, sport and recreation. Our girl children and women in sport must be empowered with the confidence that they are in fact worthy, equipped with the knowledge that anything they set their minds to, they can achieve and should not be held back by anything or anyone and gen-xx personifies this notion through their proactive efforts. For this we thank you profusely and share our excitement as together we progress the agenda of wellbeing and dignity in the Western Cape”.

Tanya Roux, Founder and CEO of gen-XX said, “We understand that education on what a dignified experience looks like, starts at home – where a young girl is at her most vulnerable. We also know this basic education more often than not, does not happen. If we change the narrative on dignified experiences for women from a “human right” to normal “human condition” we start winning the war on our girls/women understanding that dignity is already theirs. The problem is that we define dignity of women by what they have access to instead of who they are at their core – so yes, let’s fight the battle on period poverty, but let’s not forget that the war is aimed at dignified experiences all round and THAT is gen-XX’s big agenda.”