Stevenage friends tackle period poverty with campaign for sanitary products
Sanya Masood and Sophie Harrold are collecting sanitary products to help people in need. - Credit: Archant
Two friends behind a drive to provide women in need with sanitary products are appealing for help with their latest project.
Friends Sanya Masood and Sophie Harrold, who both live in Stevenage, set up A Bloody Good Cause in 2015 after hearing about a campaign called The Homeless Period.
The campaign was asking people to sign a petition to get the Government to give homeless shelters an allowance to buy sanitary products.
Wanting to do more, Sanya and Sophie started a Facebook page asking for donations of sanitary towels and tampons to give to women in need.
Sophie said: “When we first started A Bloody Good Cause it was in response to the lack of sanitary provision in homeless shelters. Over the past two years, we’ve realised it’s a much more widespread issue.
“Period poverty is pervasive amongst homeless women, refugees, women seeking safety when fleeing domestic abuse, and even amongst schoolgirls who skip school every month due to a lack of sanitary products.”
Sanya and Sophie’s first campaign involved collecting donations of sanitary products and giving them to The Whitechapel Centre - a homeless and housing charity in Liverpool. Since then they have collected hundreds of products for organisations across the country.
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The women are now appealing for donations for Tindlemanor in London - a building which houses women’s organisations such as Women for Refugee Women, and Latin American Women’s Rights Service.
Sophie said: “We wanted to support the brilliant work Tindlemanor does for women seeking help and stability.
“The availability of sanitary products is often the last thing on people’s minds when they think of helping refugee women.
“The two organisations we are donating to within Tindlemanor will be able to directly pass on our donations to the women who have an immediate need for it.”
Sophie added: “In the future, we hope sanitary products will become more widely available to those in need.”
If you would like to support Sanya and Sophie’s collection, you can visit their Facebook page A Bloody Good Cause or tweet @ABloodyGC. Donations will be delivered to Tindlemanor at the end of August.
