FLOJO
Responding to Gaps in Menstruation Education
Within this University project, we were prompted to design an Instructional Tool for primary school aged children. We were asked to communicate and teach a topic of our choice through a comprehensive learning tool and accompanying teacher resource. The intended outcome should champion 8 weeks of extensive research that informed communication strategies and design decisions, with an overarching focus on the nuances of instructing and educating children.
A lighthearted and vivacious identity was carefully chosen to heighten the engagement of the target audience and encourage repeated play as a means of reinforcing crucial information. Board game elements are imbued with a deliberate sense of humour and storytelling as a means of reframing menstruation as something to be revelled at and curiously explored rather than apprehensive of or dreaded. Typography, colour and simple visual motifs were selected with legibility, instruction and childrens literacy abilities in mind, as was the mechanics of board game play.
FLOJO is accompanied by an extensive teacher resource and instruction manual, equipping teachers and carers with the ability to approach this complex topic with confidence.
As a mobile, take-home resource, framed as a playful game, it is my hope that menstruation education can encouragingly penetrate spaces and households where the topic is evaded or suppressed. Moreover, designed with clear, age-appropriate instruction, the tool empowers independent play amongst children. In this way, menstruation education becomes embedded within childrens independent socialising and play, encouraging meaningful discussions that promote a lifelong comfortability, empathy and body literacy. Here lies potential for development of an extensive system of tools, tackling similarly complex social topics within education.
FLOJO emerged from a deep personal passion as a result of the complete absence of a similar tool in my own education. From the outset I could recognise the long-lasting implications within my personal experience, legitimising the problem I was seeking to address. That is, as bolstered by the findings of a survey and interview, whereby other women were hard pressed to recall any menstruation education tool offered to them except lengthy books, FLOJO responds to legitimate gaps in current Australian Sexual Health Education.
