NEW YORK, USA — Dr Sandra Lindsay, the Jamaican-born nurse made famous for being the first person in the United States to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in 2020, is injecting new promise into her beloved island with a project set to benefit countless young girls.

The Sandra Lindsay Foundation is launching its philanthropic period poverty project at Camperdown High School in Kingston today, March 4, during Girls’ Day, a project Dr Lindsay said is her attempt to pay it forward.

Dr Lindsay, who is vice-president, public health advocacy, at Northwell Health in New York, United States, said for the past two years she has been travelling back to Jamaica spearheading surgical missions sponsored by Northwell Health, performing life-changing gynaecological surgeries on women who are under-resourced.

The programme helps patients who are on the waiting list for procedures to deal with heavy bleeding or pain from uterine fibroids, et cetera, but who are experiencing delays.

“I usually speak to the women prior to surgery, just getting to know their stories beyond their diagnosis, and in speaking to them I kept hearing over and over again the challenges they face with purchasing period products to manage their heavy bleeding, so it was quite disheartening,” Dr Lindsay told the Jamaica Observer.

She said the stigma and shame led to feelings of depression, social isolation, loss of jobs, and financial hardships.

“So I came back home and started researching period poverty, and started to hear about it more and more — and then I realised it was a big problem. It’s a problem globally, and then I started to look at Jamaica.”

She said she found that 44 per cent of women in Jamaica experience period poverty — approximately 660,000 women — and 20 per cent of high school girls are also impacted.

“They miss school because they don’t have products to go to school, and a girl can miss up to three months of school per year because of not being able to afford period products,” she said. “I realised I have been given an amazing platform and so I wanted to use it for good.”

She explained: “The way I grew up, growing up with my grandparents, service is in my DNA. My grandparents were community leaders who gave back a lot so I learned from them. They always told me that to whom much is given, much is expected.”

Dr Lindsay said she reached out to some high schools, “because when we uplift our children, we uplift a whole nation”.

“My goal is to have these young ladies stay in school, and get an education so they can make something of themselves,” she said.

Camperdown was one of the first schools that responded, followed by Glenmuir, Dr Lindsay’s alma mater.

Victoria Jubilee Hospital’s women’s health clinic, the feeder hospital for the surgeries, will also be aided, along with the 18 girls at the Mustard Seed home Dare to Care, who were asked to be included by the Optimist Club.

For each location the menstrual products will vary — sanitary napkins, menstrual cups, period panties and tampons — donated based on the population.

Dr Lindsay said Egal, a company in Ohio, United States, that provides a novel product, Pads on a Roll, was approached and signed on to provide Camperdown and Glenmuir with its products in every female bathroom stall for one year.

Egal’s individually wrapped pads are placed on a roll, like tissue paper. There are 40 pads per roll. Their contribution to Jamaica will be in a total 29 stalls in both schools.

“There’s no reason why any girl shouldn’t come to school because she cannot afford period products,” Dr Lindsay said. “I was fortunate enough to not have to think about those challenges growing up and so I want to break down the barriers for them so they can be the best anything they want to be. No girl should be denied an education because of period products so I was very happy to secure that one-year deal for them.”

She said Northwell Health is a big supporter of all she does for equity, and has given back generously to Jamaica. Similarly, when they learned about the initiative, Girl Scouts of Nassau County created individual packages for all the girls with very powerful inspirational messages, and also donated Girl Scouts cookies.

Another group, Delta Sigma Theta sorority of Nassau County’s alumnae, also engaged in outreach and collected US$900 worth of period products for the girls. The sorority has connected Dr Lindsay with sisters in Jamaica who are visiting Camperdown to celebrate the initiative.

With more than 28 years of nursing experience, Dr Lindsay was the recipient of the Pioneer Award at this year’s Children of Jamaica Outreach charity gala event in New York on March 1, in recognition of her work.

On December 14, 2020, she was propelled into the global spotlight after becoming the first person in the United States to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, outside of a clinical trial. Since the historic shot, Dr Lindsay has become an advocate for vaccinations and dispelling misinformation, and a supporter of medical research and global health equity. In July 2022 President Joe Biden awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honour given to a United States citizen and the second such honour given by Biden.

Dr Lindsay was born in Jamaica and raised by her parents and grandparents. She and her siblings moved to the United States in 1986 where she put herself through nursing school by working as a babysitter and cashier in a supermarket.