Woman's long walk for menstrual justice

A KwaZulu-Natal woman is on top of the world after completing a gruelling four-week walk from Johannesburg to Durban in a bid to raise awareness about sanitary and menstrual justice.

Sindiswa Ndaba, 23, who covered a distance of about 721.5km, raised R10,000 from generous sponsors.

“I have created an awareness through all the stops that we made during the arduous journey,” she said.

Her sister Lindo, who was her designated driver, was her support system.

Ndaba said the walk proved to be a roller-coaster ride.

“It was a mentally challenging thing to set out on, but I persevered because I knew what would be the end goal. Even when the odds were stacked against me, I knew I had to be resilient.”

She credited her late father Mbambeni, a school principal, who imbued in her the spirit of helping the less fortunate.

“My father was someone who never shied away from digging deep into his pockets to raise money for the less fortunate pupils. He even paid for maintenance for some school buildings,” said Ndaba.

Her journey began on May 28 at the Nelson Mandela bridge in Johannesburg and culminated at the Durban beachfront on Sunday.

Ndaba, who matriculated from the prestigious St John’s Diocesan School for Girls in 2017 and previously attended Northern Park Primary, said both schools offered her immense support for the initiative.

She is now studying to become a professional pilot.

uMgungundlovu district mayor Mzi Zuma, who donated two JoJo tanks and some sanitary pads to the project, said the campaign should also serve as a springboard to identify youth who are grappling with these challenges.

“This would go a long way to improving awareness. We need to look into the bigger picture from Sindiswa’s initiative. We should intensify the campaign of profiling girl children so that we come up with holistic interventions,” said Zuma.

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