Manjit K Gill MBE Founder and CEO of Binti International says “My life’s motto is ‘If there is a will there is a way’. I am delighted to receive an honour from Her Majesty for the work we do around periods.
Since I set up Binti, I have been grateful for the opportunity to travel around the world with a platform to speak from. Each opportunity igniting the way for another opportunity, bigger than the last, and all to talk about one of the most taboo subjects on the planet – Periods.
The foundation of life and a regular occurrence for half of the world’s population, periods still remain a conversation that nobody really wants to have. I have been ardently outspoken. I’ve campaigned fearlessly against the odds and have found myself talking about periods in places that the word “menstruation” has never been discussed before. We are finally making tracks in the road and making talking about periods the norm within family homes, Bollywood, Hollywood, with politicians, fathers, sons, brothers, husbands and friends.
Women and girls around the world start to bleed sometimes at the age of 9 every month for 4 decades of their lives and learn on the job. We are in the 21st century and yet it is incredulous that something as natural as a menstrual cycle has incredibly detrimental, social, mental and physical effects on the lives of many women and girls. Some drop out of school and are forced into a cycle of poverty. Others use cow dung, animal skin or leaves to manage their menstrual cycle.
My work has been honest and challenging and I am fuelled by the fire that there is hope in humanity. I have never shied away from helping people going through hardship, inequality or injustice. When I found out I was being recognised for my work in Her Majesty’s birthday honours, my initial reaction was ‘wow, Her Majesty the Queen herself has read about Binti’. We were a step closer to our dream to create a world where all women have menstrual dignity. In the 6 years that Binti has been running, we have managed to take the period conversation to Her Majesty! I have worked so diligently to help girls and women to have their first period discussion and today the period revolution meant that Her Majesty was recognising our work with one of her highest honours.
However, I held a reservation and an uncertainty with the acceptance of the honour.
I am a daughter of immigrants who came to Britain in 1963 with just five pounds in their pocket.
My mother was in her early 20s and she arrived alone with my older brother aged 2 in 1965. She arrived in late September to be met by my father with no idea of how cold it would be with her silk sari’s. Her first foray into the streets of Britain meant shopping for a coat and hat, none of which she had worn before. She went to sleep looking out of the windows and thought that the chimneys were soldiers because she was told there was no crime and perhaps they were safeguarding. She cried for weeks because she was homesick. She wrote to her grandfather and said that she found herself in a single room with nowhere to go, nothing to eat and that my brother had succumbed to eat the wallpaper because he didn’t like the food. She was accustomed to a bright sunny climate and life on a farm in Punjab where my brother was free to run around in a big extended family environment and where you ate the fresh organic crops that you grew.
Her first job was to make paper bags while my father worked for Rockware Glass Factory. He never spent a day in the UK without a job, or working hard to look after his young family. I was born shortly after and my sister and younger brother came a few years later. My parents arrived with very little and worked every day to create the blessed life that we have today. They encountered a country where they were harshly discriminated towards simply because of the colour of her skin.
However, they were determined to stick it out and lay the foundations for what they hoped would be a brighter future for their children, grandchildren and generations to follow. What they and the thousands of other people like them went through is often overlooked and taken for granted. I’m proud of my heritage and Sikh faith, and I’m proud of my family and my children who are a reflection of the risk that my father took when he left his loving family and everything he knew behind to come to Great Britain.
These harsh and often cruel realities that non-white people suffered in the UK amidst the reign of the British Empire and via colonialism, are never put to bed in my mind. I acknowledge the damaging legacy of empire and colonialism. However I am a realist. My decision to accept the MBE is a recognition and honour for the extraordinary sacrifices, hardships and heartbreaks that my parents made just for me to be able to have a foundation. Their hardships meant that I had the resilience, bravery and gusto to make an impact with Binti. I stand on the shoulders of giants and I am proud to accept an honour that also manifests as a recognition of the hard work that many Panjabi parents made when they moved to Britain for a better future.
Nothing I have achieved would have been possible without my parents – absolutely nothing. I have spent a lot of my life trying to understand how people’s choices affect others. Through this, I have come to a place of understanding, where I want to bridge gaps rather than contribute to fear and negativity. Nothing and no one is my enemy. I am compelled to do what feels right in my heart and now nothing feels more important than honouring my parents and their generation.
When I think of Binti I remember a quote by Shirley Chisholm the first African American woman elected to the Unites States Congress “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” I found a way to stand up for women and those that are the most marginalised in society and it became my calling.
I know there are people who disagree with the honours system, and I respect that. I believe that awards can be whatever you want them to be and, for me, my MBE means my parents immigration equals the success that spurred them and their generation to leave everything they knew to start a new life in a foreign country. The country that became home for my generation. I dedicate it to all of you”.
Manjit K. Gill MBE – Founder & CEO, Binti International
ENDS ###
EDITORS NOTES:
Binti is a registered charity, with a mission to provide menstrual dignity to all girls, all over the world. This means facilitating access to pads to ensure menstrual hygiene, educating girls about what menstruation is and what they can expect from it, and dispelling stigma, taboos, myths and negative perceptions around menstruation. Our mission is to;
To improve access to period products for women around the world, either by training them to make their own pads or by facilitating access to pads.
To educate girls about the menstrual cycle, so that they understand what to expect when they begin their periods, and how to care for themselves during menstruation.
To advocate for the normalisation of menstruation, and fight against the myths and stigma around it that persist across the globe.
