Educating young girls important

Menstrual health discussions should be normalised in schools to help young girls.

This is the view of Dawn Williams, Co-Founder of the Barbados Association of Endometriosis and PCOS (BAEP).

During an interview with The Barbados Advocate, Williams highlighted that during secondary school years, young girls should be taught about endometriosis and other gynaecological conditions.

“Chances are, 10 per cent of them may actually suffer with it,” she said.

“I also believe that, with better funding available to charities such as BAEP, more advertising and educational campaigns can be undertaken to educate the masses.”

Williams, who was diagnosed with endometriosis at 23 years old, revealed that she only learnt about the condition upon diagnosis.

“So I sought about doing my own research vigorously, and when I found out that potentially 1 in 10 women worldwide suffer with this condition, but it was still so unknown in general social circles, I resolved to play my part to change that narrative in Barbados,” she said.

“I created the Facebook page – then called “Endo Facts” – in 2010 and posted everything I could find about the condition. Coincidentally, for the first few years of running the page, about 90% of the fans were not Barbadians.

“I then met Julia Mandeville in 2014,  via a friend who connected us because Julia was recently diagnosed and wanted to connect with a fellow endo sister. And as a result, the two of us co-founded the Barbados Association of Endometriosis and PCOS (or BAEP) in 2016, and invited seven other women to serve on our Board of Trustees. The Facebook page I’d started was then re-branded to be BAEP’s Facebook page, and since then I have seen and heard evidence of growing awareness of the condition,” Williams stated.

She explained that the Association is mostly self-funded, with a few, generous corporate donations during the year.

Williams also highlighted that those donations have helped them to raise awareness about the condition, but she believes that there is so much more that can be done.