Ama was on her way home from town one day, when she got her period. She felt achy and tired but as she watched people walking past her, she saw a truth:

“Every person walking this earth started as an egg and a pregnancy,” she thought. “My body - every woman’s body - goes through this so the human race can exist. Why don’t we talk about it?”

Tired of not talking
Ama decided to do something. At school, she told her best friend her idea - they should ask the girls in class if they wanted to meet after school to share their worries.

That’s how the Period Power club started. After meeting, the girls felt more normal and less alone.

Wiser and healthier
The more the girls met, the stronger they felt - like a team. Here are some things they learned together:

Starting your period doesn’t mean you’re ‘ready’ to have sex. One girl admitted she was scared her period meant she was a woman and should be getting ready for marriage and babies. When her friends said her body was just ‘in training’, that it was normal to feel she wasn’t ‘ready for the marathon’ yet, she felt better.

Burning pain when you wee isn’t a normal part of getting your period. When a girl in the group started using tampons, she started needing to wee more, and it burned when she did. She thought it was the tampon pressing against her inside. But the other girls said it didn’t happen to them. She spoke to her mother, who sent her to the clinic. She had a bladder infection - cystitis. Lots of women get it, but in severe cases, it can spread to your kidneys if it isn’t treated.

Hormones can knock your confidence - but you can be ready for them. A few girls in the group said they felt low around their period. They realised they felt weak, ugly or moody because of what was happening in their bodies, not because of who they were. They agreed to be kinder to themselves and each other in those moments.

Private isn’t the same as secret. The girls thought people saw periods as somehow dirtier than other bodily stuff like sweat, snot and poo. People feel private about their bodies but they decided that’s not the same as feeling secretive or ashamed. For them it became important to share, because keeping things secret can be harmful.

Remember, if you want to start your own group, that things you hear - or read - aren’t always true. When you look up answers - especially online - make sure they come from a source you trust.