Maya Angelou once said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” It is a sentiment that many women can relate to. However, now women are creating platforms and spaces to voice their stories and to empower one another. One such example is the HERstoire Collective. Dazzle Magazine had the pleasure of sitting down with HERstoire’s Founding Director, Dr. Robyn Charlery White to talk about HERstoire’s story and its mission of women empowerment in the region.
Dazzle: Can you tell us what HERstoire is all about?
Robyn: HERstoire in a nutshell, is about promoting Caribbean women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). That’s in a nutshell. Of course, there are a lot of other issues that we address; gender dynamics and gendered power norms in relationships, especially in the Caribbean. We open the door to discussing many topics such as dissecting feminist issues and unearthing the myths and taboos about feminism – that it is not a dirty word, and it doesn’t mean that you hate men.
Dazzle: What inspired you to start HERstoire?
Robyn: The final impetus into starting HERstoire was the research I was conducting in Saint Lucia for my dissertation in 2015. The goal of my research was to determine how Caribbean women or St. Lucian women perceive their risk of contracting HIV, whether it be through their partners, through giving blood or whatever the risk may be. What ended up happening however, was that there were so many issues presented and discussed in those interviews about gender power dynamics and issues in relationships. Things that women were faced with and accepting in relationships, and had challenges with but didn’t necessarily know how to explain why that was an issue for them. So as a result I contemplated how do I make my research and the outcome of my research meet these very real issues in St. Lucia. So HERstoire wouldn’t have been born if I had just stuck with HIV and sexual research.
Dazzle: Why the name “HERstoire”?
Robyn: For over six months my cofounder and I were deliberating, and all the names we kept coming up with were so literal. What I got drawn to was the French/Patois “L’histoire”, meaning history or story, and I thought of a play on words with “her story”. If you Google “her story”, you’ll see that there are over a million organisations, movements and websites already but there’s only one HERstoire. When people hear HERstoire, they think “Oh that’s French or something. What exactly does it mean?” So, it is a great talking point. It actually represents H – Health Education, E
– Empowerment, R – Research and Stoire – Stories.
Dazzle: When did HERstoire launch?
Robyn: January 2nd, 2016 was when we finally finalized the name, and therefore we consider this our “birthday”. At the time of HERstoire’s conception I was in New York, so we didn’t get started off in Saint Lucia. Since we are primarily focused on digital advocacy, we started off then on social media (Instagram and Facebook), by addressing the various SRHR topics and taboos that we are unearthing. I liaised with a number of organizations that I was already working with privately, through my consulting practice, and immediately they were like “This is an awesome idea! We want you to conduct these facilitations and workshops at the United Nations and other places.”As a result, HERstoire took a life of its own before I even had time to bring it to Saint Lucia. Eventually, I finally got to Saint Lucia in September of that same year, in 2016. We immediately started conducting workshops, programs and events and we had our unofficial launch so to speak, as the first Vision Box Party in Saint Lucia on January 2nd, 2017.
Dazzle: What are some programmes HERstoire has undertaken?
Robyn: We designed the “HERFleur: Let’s Talk. Period” program – where we educate secondary school girls about menstruation, hygiene and reduce period poverty by providing menstrual care supplies. We initially felt that the curriculum was so amazing and ground-breaking. I mean we planned to have these discussions about the sexualization of girls once they start menstruating, consumerism of menstrual supplies, etc. – the idea was to dive deeper into menstrual issues than the basics. However, when we got in the first few schools we realized many of these girls didn’t even know what menstruation or their period was. At their level, their priorities were learning how to keep themselves clean, how often should they be changing their pads, how to buy pads, how to even use pads, etc. So, we recognized the curriculum was off target and we had to take it back to the drawing board. I also had to do a different training of volunteers, to make them more brazen and brash because you can’t be shy when talking about these issues, and you also can’t be too academic.
Another program we implemented was the Sister2Sister Safe Space Program, which has since been considered as a Best Practice by the OECS. That was a primarily virtual program where we facilitated online chats every other week on our website (from March-November 2017). Each chat lasted two hours, and it was hosted on a plethora of hot topics ranging endometriosis, PCOS, sexual violence, mental health and a wide range of other SRHR issues that affect women. We also have our Vision Box Party annually. This program focuses on manifesting your visions, making it a reality and helping you with planning and goal setting.
Dazzle: Compared to when you started off and now, has there been greater attention placed on the issues that HERstoire addresses?
Robyn: Oh yes, definitely. Between the time we’ve started and now, I can point out a bunch of movements that we either collaborated with or capitalized on as well to help promote our platform, starting with Fiona Compton’s “Not Asking for It” Movement; which was one of our very first collaborations. After that was “Life in Leggings”, which was founded by Ronelle King, in Barbados. This massive movement was started to draw attention to sexual harassment and street harassment, specifically in the Caribbean. This year alone, I’d say HERstoire has been invited to at least four convenings addressing the intersections of women and gender issues in the Caribbean, which surprised me. We’ve also been increasingly invited to speak to women and youth on SRHR topics. All that proves is that the conversations are happening, people are paying attention to these issues, and I do think we are changing society.
Dazzle: What are HERstoire’s future plans?
Robyn: Our immediate future plans are to take the “HERFleur: Let’s Talk. Period” program to the next level which is teaching the ladies to make their own reusable pads. We’ve already successfully piloted this program and we intend to offer it in the schools as an afterschool program as well as in communities and organisations. After this, we’re bringing back the Sister2Sister Safe Space Virtual Program! For this one, however, we intend to have more visual aids as people are very visual learners, and they’d like to see the facilitators or enhance interaction on some level. With the Sister2Sister Safe Space Virtual Program, it’s not going to be just for Saint Lucians, it’s going to be accessible wherever in the world you are. HERstoire is really for Caribbean women in the diaspora, so it’s a space where we don’t want other Caribbean women to think that this is only for Saint Lucians. We want all Caribbean women, no matter where you are, to know that you have a safe space at HERstoire!
We wish Dr. Charlery White and HERstoire all the best in their future endeavours.
