17 Dec Period Poverty 101

In honour of Empower’em’s annual sanitary product drive, we called in an expert to educate our audience on period poverty. The following is a short interview with Meghan the creator of Period Packs, a local organization in Ottawa focused on providing access to menstrual health products and breaking down the stigma around period health.

Why do we need sanitary product drives in Ottawa?

People who are menstruating, in general, have a lot of specific and complex needs. One thing that we have to remember when it comes to emergency services in Ottawa, is the importance of human dignity ensuring that everybody has the resources necessary to manage their basic needs themselves which includes their own cycles so by providing these products and putting people in a position where they can manage their own basic health needs is super important and extremely empowering. It’s really rare for people to be given the opportunity to receive menstrual products to manage their entire cycle however they see fit. For example, many emergency services typically only give a couple pads or tampons to those who need them which is great, but when you can give them a package that is able to support them throughout their entire cycle it is acknowledging that they are responsible and autonomous and they can manage their own health. There should not be any Gatekeepers to menstrual products and they should be available to everyone despite socioeconomic background or geographical barriers keeping people away from absolutely essential products. 

How would you describe a Sanitary Product Drive to someone who’s never heard of one?

It’s very much like any other donation program; you bring an essential product to the drop off location and then it goes to someone in the community who would otherwise not have access to it. In this case, Empower’em will be distributing the products and that’s the basis of it.

What is the impact of sanitary product drives?

There’s a gap between people providing emergency services and people donating the products so if you close this gap as fast as you can by bringing in the recipient and the person providing products as close as possible, then there is so much more potential for change. It allows people to realize that other people want to help them and it helps people see who they’re helping which is a beautiful thing and it’s where the most change can happen. It also gives people the opportunity to learn and engage in the subjects if we’re talking about and involve the community which is very important when it comes to addressing social issues.