Empowering all menstruating individuals, regardless of their cultural or gender differences, through menstrual literacy, equity and advocacy
Project by:
Abhishta Lalwani
Tutors:
Dr. Areli Avendano Franco & Prof. Jules Moloney
Service + UI/UX Design • 2024
Background
As part of my final semester for my Masters program, I worked on a service and experience design project for my major project. The topic was chosen out of personal experience as well as driving a need to initiate conversations around menstruation since it's still considered a taboo topic till date. The project took menstrual health issues within Australia into context for the scope of the project.
The Context
Menstruation remains a taboo in many cultures, impacting equitable menstrual health access in Australia, especially among diverse cultural and gender groups. Given the significant cultural, social, and economic contributions of international students to Australia, ensuring their equitable health access is crucial.
The Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health (MCWH) advocates for:
Innovative health education and advocacy, training healthcare staff, providing multilingual information and community engagement.
Design Approach
The project employs a human-centred approach and service design methodologies through auto-ethnography and participatory methods via expert interviews and user involvement in the form of discussions and observations. It aims to promote FemTech i.e. technology tailored to women’s health. For more details on the project, here's a more detailed version.
How might we address stigma, lack of knowledge on menstrual health, and health system challenges for international students in Australia to promote menstrual literacy, equity and advocacy though a community- centric approach?
Needs & Expectations of Stakeholders
“I want to understand if my doctor’s visit is included in my OSHC”
“I follow my friend’s advice and check with other people about the process”
“I have questions I want to ask to the doctor but I don’t know what kind of questions I should ask”
“I search for information on Google and often get vague results and not relevant to me”
After noting down my personal experiences regarding menstruation and linking that to a socio cultural context in Victoria, Australia. I also had a few discussions with people, to get a better understanding about what the students’ thought process is while trying to navigate through the Australian healthcare system, an Empathy Map seemed like the best tool to get deeper insights.
International Students
I also spoke to Amira from the Multicultural Centre for Women's Health (MCWH) who facilitate outreach programs for migrant and refugee women to teach women about their health and the health system in Australia.
My questions were around understanding how we can bridge the gap between these organisations and international students and she mentioned that the students need a platform where they could have access to everything in one place as the current process is a bit scattered and students don’t know where to go or how to go about certain things, especially when you newly move to a country.
“We tackle the unsaid but assumed things that people can’t share with the GPs”
“Some women have difficulty in understanding the system”
“There’s a gap between international students and women’s health organisations to access their resources”
“We must change the story around the stigma associated to menstruation by talking about it”
Amira Rahmanovic
Bilingual Health Educator, Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health
Introducing
‘Breaking The Cycle’ is a community- centric platform focused on providing menstrual literacy, equity, and advocacy for international students from diverse backgrounds. The proposed design includes a communication campaign for a website featuring:
1. Tailored Care: Culturally sensitive healthcare providers & need-specific discussion prompts
2. Resources: An AI chatbot offering specific health information and a database of evidence-based health resources
3. Community Engagement: Peer support and health education workshops
The vision for ‘Breaking The Cycle’ is to enhance conversations about menstrual health, making women’s healthcare
more accessible, personalized, and equitable, especially among culturally and linguistically diverse people.
For a detailed understanding of the project, view here.
Design Framework
1. Awareness
• Building awareness among international students who turn to their universities for health information
• Attempting to draw attention through an inclusive medium
2. Interaction
• A student experiencing extreme menstrual symptoms like heavy bleeding, extremely painful cramps, etc. sees these touchpoints
• They interact with the QR code to find out more because they are intrigued by the posters and menstrual product stations
3. Engagement
• Collaborative education workshops with the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health (MCWH)
• Topics could be covered through surveys and issues that students bring up with Menstrual Health Advocates
For a detailed understanding of the project, visit this page.
Feedback
Amira Rahmanovic
Bilingual Health Educator, Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health
“This would be very helpful for students but also for women’s health organisations to create resources for international students’ specific needs”
Esther Xu
Bilingual Health Educator, Women's Health East
“Expanding this to other universities would be useful for students to help each other out”
Juliet Wong Min
Product & UX Design Specialist, The Aquarium (Design & Strategic Consultancy)
“The website is easy to navigate and the features are very clear and easy to understand”
Social Innovation Award
The project 'Breaking The Cycle' has been a challenging but rewarding experience and I'm grateful to everyone who supported me throughout the project.
I received the 'Social Innovation Award' for this project at the 'Master of Design Innovation and Technology' semester end exhibition.