Students at Hatch End High School have launched a campaign to help end period poverty in the local community by asking others to donate sanitary products to the local food bank.
It is estimated that 8000 people in the UK are homeless, a figure which is uncertain and extremely hard to determine due to hidden homelessness: people move around, sofa surf and sleep at unusual times. There are also over 14 million people currently living in poverty according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
People can become homeless because of unemployment, mental health, abuse, loss of housing or poverty. Compared to food and shelter, sanitary products and hygiene are at the bottom of many people’s priorities when living in poverty, especially if they have children.
1 in 10 young people aged 14 - 21 did not have enough money to afford period products in 2017. This has been shown to lead to an increase of missed school which can negatively affect grades and can also contribute to the development of anxiety disorder and depression. Because of this, many schools have started to team up with the Red Box Project in order to offer free period products for students who might otherwise not have access to them. For example, the box contains pads, tampons and spare clean underwear which students can access discreetly in school welfare.
The group plans to aid this pre- existing project and prevent period poverty in the wider community. They have plans to place collection bins in the girl’s gym, medical office and students’ tutor rooms. The content of the bins will then be collected and handed into local food banks allowing sanitary products to be easily accessible in the local community to those who need them.
Emily Man, one of the students behind the campaign stated that she started the project after feeling like she was not doing enough to help those in need in her community . “I felt complacent in the homeless crisis - seeing all these people on the streets and I couldn’t give them money.”
Many people question whether to give money to homeless people because of the lack of knowledge of what it might be spent on. It is a better idea to put money into necessities like food and hygiene products to ensure that you are directly benefiting lives and not contributing to wider issues such as drug addiction.
Emily continued “Why periods? Because we all hate them and they’re overlooked when we look at poverty.” She hopes that the campaign will provide a gateway for students to look into the issue of poverty in greater depth. “With a school of 2,000 plus people, surely we can bring about some change. I want to raise awareness of poverty in general and get a conversation started. It’s something achievable and something that the school can continue to do in the future.”
By delivering assemblies and spreading awareness of period poverty, students have also helped educate people on periods in general. It is important that people get involved and understand the topic regardless of whether they menstruate or not in order to change lives and break down the period taboo.
