“Growing up in Jamaica—access to essential materials like sanitary pads was a luxury. Most of what we had, we needed to spend making sure we could eat or get to school. By the end of the month, we couldn’t afford sanitary pads. We would use paper, cardboard—and a range of other things to meet our needs. When I got to Canada I realized that this wasn’t tied to geography. It was global—and in Toronto, the need was really there. So I started Help A Girl Out in 2018. Since then we’ve delivered thousands of hygiene materials to women and girls in across Canada, and around the world.”
She is inspired by her mother, who handcrafted pads for her to wear to school so that she could have equal education and escape the poverty that she was exposed to in her home. & uses her experiences and that of her siblings and peers as a driving force behind her passion for Help A Girl Out (HAGO) and eliminating period poverty. Since 2020, HAGO has distributed hundreds of thousands of hygiene and menstrual product kits for the homeless, refugee, BIPOC and low-income communities in the Toronto GTA and beyond as the COVID-19 crisis had severely impacted Canadians, forcing many families below the poverty line and worsening the circumstances of those who were already there.
She was awarded Global Citizen’s Canada’s Hero Award for her advocacy work through Help A Girl Out, the Viola Desmond award bursary by TMU, the Brampton Board of Trade: Community Impact Award & most recently the Toronto Youth Cabinet: Youth Advocay award.
In addition to her humanitarian efforts, Yanique holds a BSc in Medical Physics and is completing her masters in Biomedical Physics at Ryerson/TMU University. Her area of research aims to improve medical imaging in proton therapy cancer therapy.
