Community group helps girls and young women by donating sanitary products

The Red Box Project Rugby encourages women in the community to support local girls and young women by donating sanitary products at one of their donation points around the town.

A community group has been set up in Rugby to ensure that no young woman misses school because she has her period and lacks access to sanitary products.

The donations are then distributed to local schools, where they are kept with an appropriate member of staff for girls in need to access them.

The schools’ boxes contain a range of sanitary items, as well as spare pants, paper bags for discretion and posters to signpost the box, its content and location.

Avon Valley, Harris and Bilton Schools already have boxes in place.

The project is aiming to provide boxes to all secondary schools in the town and eventually offer them to primary schools and youth groups too.

Overstretched teachers already take on the responsibility of helping pupils in need and schools keep small stocks of sanitary items for emergencies.

The problem is that limited budgets mean they are usually able to hand out just a couple at a time. The Red Box supports disadvantaged young women throughout their period with as many sanitary products as they need plus the added reassurance of a few left over to prevent a panic next month.

Olivia Le Poidevin, co-ordinator for The Red Box Project Rugby, said: “It is disgraceful that one in ten girls in the UK has been unable to afford sanitary products. We are determined that this will be the last generation of girls to suffer the indignity and embarrassment of period poverty.”

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