James Atito

James Atito – The Period Man is a co-founder and the current Finance Manager at Stretchers youth organization in Mombasa county, as well as Director at The Advanced Developers Enterprenuel Services and Jaysar PoultRabbit farm-business enterprises in Kenya. He has background in accounting & finance management and Psychological counseling.With over 12 years’ experience in peer engagement, counselling, and reproductive health advocacy and life skills training, he is a global menstrual hygiene male champion. He won the “He for she champion award” in the 4th edition of African women summit in May 2023 in Cape town south Africa. His passion to end periods stigma and poverty among adolescent girls and young women has enabled him diversify his career, not only in finance management but also a strong and vocal reproductive health trainerprenuer and advocate hence the copyright brand (The Period MAN). Currently, he is a (Reducing HIV in Adolescents and Youth) RHAY top 30 under 30 2020 awardee. The award is being used to conduct a study called “Men for Periods project ending december 2023” This is a research to establish the prevalence of sex-for-pads and evaluate if engagement of men in promoting menstrual hygiene reduces the practice among adolescents and young women in Mathare and Mwamlai villages in Changamwe and Jomvu respectively, Mombasa. He is also a member of Sanitation and Hygiene Fund Kenya, Women’s March Global, Menstrual Cup Coalition, African Coalition for Menstrual Health Management and “Kenya Ni Mimi” influencer accelerating MHM advocacy in Kenya.
In 2018 he led a delegation of 1200 youths from Africa, Asia and Europe to European Union Parliament and headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. This was in spirit of resource mobilization advocacy to influence financial allocations to Sustainable development goals; 3-Health and well being, 4- Quality education and 5-Gender equity. As a result 7 recommendations were drafted together with Members of European Parliament that featured in European Union political groups manifestos and draft youth policy ahead of Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027.
He led the youth advisory committee at the Mombasa county technical team that drafted and validated both the Mombasa county Adolescents and Young People strategy on Sexual Reproductive Health and HIV 2018-2023 together with its implementation framework and Family Planning Costed Implementation plan 2018-2022.
In March 2019, James won young researchers scholarship award by AMREF Health Africa to be speaker at the Africa Health Agenda International Conference (AHAIC 2019) in Kigali Rwanda. At the conference he addressed the importance of men engagement in breaking menstruation stigma among adolescent girls and young women in relation to reducing teen pregnancies and HIV/AIDS prevalence. His international advocacy work has led to procurement of over 3 million menstrual cups and reusable pads issued to over 1.5 million girls In Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania in a bid to providing long term alternative to sanitary pads inaccessibility.
During the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD25) in Kenya 2019 James presented milestones made in male involvement on menstrual hygiene management to a plenary of over 2500 delegates in 4 different side events. In 2020, he convened the first Men4Periods hybrid conference reaching at least 3,000 people virtually on menstrual health.