Farah Chirine Fortune
Women in Business and Industry
Nominee's Province:
Gauteng
Project Name/Description:
The Pad Run, African Star Communications
Every year on her birthday, award-winning African Star Communications founder Farah Chirine Fortune, 42, from Sandton in Johannesburg, would ask friends and family to bring her toiletries as gifts and she would, in turn, donate them to needy young women and girls. Last year, at the height of the pandemic, she launched The Pad Run, a non-profit organisation that collects and distributes sanitary pads to young women, and has so far raised R100 000 and distributed more than 10 000 sanitary pads across the country. “Research shows that young women and girls sometimes use newspapers and old pillow cases as sanitary ware,” states Fortune. The Pad Run holds Period Pouch Workshops during which it educates attendees on menstruation and related topics, including birth control and endometriosis, a disorder in which tissue that normally lines the uterus grows outside of the uterus. “I’m always so happy to destigmatize menstruation myths. We need to educate boys and men too about the intricacies of what happens when a woman gets a period,” says Fortune. Five board members help Fortune run The Pad Run.
