Period Poverty, it’s kind of a big deal.

In fact, Plan International UK found that one in 10 girls or women aged 14 to 21 in the UK cannot afford sanitary towels or tampons. Considering that the UK is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, that’s pretty shocking.

But it’s not just the younger generation who are suffering. Asylum seekers and refugees are in the firing line of period poverty too.

Asylum seekers receive only £36 a week to live on, and when you consider that the average cost of a period is £5+ (for sanitary towels, tampons, and pain relief), that’s really not very much.

Sadly, many girls and women are reduced to using alternative methods of sanitary protection. Toilet paper. Scraps of fabric. Newspaper.

Or, even worse, nothing at all.

 

So, what did we do about it?

Working in collaboration with Bloody Good Period (an organisation who donate sanitary supplies to asylum seekers, refugees, and those who cannot afford them), we started a collection. A bloody good collection at that.

Over two weeks, we managed to collect:

• 1857 Sanitary Towels
• 806 Panty Liners
• 526 Tampons
• 1824 Wet Wipes
• 134 Nappies

And at the end of the collection, we took everything up to the lovely people at Aid Box Community Bristol. They run a “Free Shop” where refugees and asylum seekers are able to pick up donated clothes, shoes, household items, furniture, and other essentials (e.g. sanitary products).

The average lifetime cost having a period is around £4,800 so you can understand how period poverty exists. But, with the help of charities such as Bloody Good Period and Aid Box Community, we can work together to end this issue, period.