For BGS’ International Women’s Day newsletter, I was asked to write a bit about my work supporting women and girls in the UK and East Africa with healthy, happy periods.

My name is Tora and I am a BGS (Girls) alumni; starting Kindergarten in 1992 (said with such nervous laughter when I acknowledge my age out loud like this) and leaving after A levels in 2006. Although it’s been twenty years, I still feel deeply connected to BGS - it will be a huge part of who I am for the rest of my life. The main reasons being because of the incredible sense of community and celebration of young women and girls that I experienced. Maybe I was lucky or had the right group of friends and teachers around me, but BGS and being in an all-girls school has really framed who I am today.

Being a mixed-race woman of South African heritage, my dad from apartheid South Africa and my mum working in various roles campaigning to end health inequalities, I grew up with a natural but deep desire to want to be part of positive change in the world, to change the struggles and challenges so many people experience.

After graduating university, I studied and worked in the law. One of my most successful public law cases was against the Prison Service who had forced my female client to undergo a strip-search when she was menstruating. My case was successful and my client was compensated, but it was at this point my interest in representing women; women’s needs, women’s rights, women’s justice specifically, was sparked. I worked for a range of law firms and later criminal justice focused NGOs, and the repeated messaging and reality I came across was that the systems influencing my work, (healthcare, education, criminal justice etc), were primarily designed by men, for men, with very little attention to the needs and experiences of women.

Whilst working for a large women’s criminal justice charity, I started to volunteer with a small UK charity who were tackling ‘period poverty’ both in the UK and Kenya by providing women and girls with access to reusable, washable period products. I was fascinated by some of the data larger international NGOs had collected regarding what amounted to ‘period poverty.’ According to a 2019 report, 1 in 10 young women and girls (aged 14-21), were unable to afford/ access period products. And a deeper look into the reasons for this coined period poverty a three-part issue: (i) lack of affordability of products was a factor; (ii) a lack of education concerning menstruation generally also played a role; and critically (iii) the stigmas and cultural shame attached to periods influenced a young person’s ability to seek help. I remember being shocked that these statistics and findings were from a country as ‘developed’ as the UK. Young women and girls were missing school because they couldn’t afford period products and didn’t want to leave home without them.

In 2018 I travelled to Uganda and supported the start-up of an initiative that also tackled period poverty, addressing the same causal factors from the U.K. data. Working with on the ground, grassroots community organisations we set up Freedom for Girls Uganda - an educational and free resource movement helping women, young women and girls to have healthy, happy periods. We are based in Fort Portal, Western Uganda but have worked in many regions, including Soroti, Jinja and areas of Tanzania and South Africa.

In an attempt to tackle each element that contributes to period poverty, our work covers a few bases:

An empowerment education programme called ‘Empowered Periods.’ Here we teach young women, girls, young men and boys about menstruation. We deliver fun, interactive workshops and teach the biological process and the emotional and broader physiological impacts periods can have. The reason we speak to male students is because a huge part of stigmatising periods comes from them being unknown, a taboo and hidden subject in many communities. The more we can reduce these stigmas and taboos, the more women and girls can be supported through this very natural process, creating a stronger environment of respect, empathy and understanding of menstruation and therefore women.

Working with local seamstresses, we create washable, reusable pads that are environmentally friendly, plastic free and support a young woman or girl for 3 years (minimum), of menstrual protection. Our period pad packs are created with safe, durable and waterproof material that is cleaned through boiled water and sunlight. In addition, when we are able, we market and sell the pad packs and income from these sales is replenished back into the workshops where more products can be created and donated to vulnerable members of the community.

Lastly, we support the set up of ‘Period Clubs’ in schools. Young women in schools spearhead ongoing clubs that are educational and fun, providing emotional and practical support to young women and girls starting their periods, and generally working to remove the negative narratives and feelings so many of us experienced when we first started menstruating.

We are immensely proud of our work that has been changing the lives of young people across Fort Portal for the past 7 years. We have delivered education to over 5000 school children, have donated roughly 2500 period pad packs, allowing young women and girls to stay in school and reduce infections from using unsafe period products, have kept seamstresses in employment and have run events for International Women’s Day, World Menstrual Health Day and International Day of the Girl Child, highlighting the importance of respecting periods and the menstrual cycle. Our work is rooted in the premise that, to work towards gender equality, women and girls should be supported and respected for being women and girls, and our menstruation and reproductive rights are a significant part of that.

If you would like to learn more about our work and how to support, please feel free to reach out via the social impact consultancy who represents us: grassroots2growth@gmail.com or via the UK based Community Interest Company that we sit under, TAP Project C.I.C: admin@tapproject.co.uk

Thank you for reading and have a beautiful International Women’s Day!