Arcadia Ireland

On Tuesday, November 26th, we celebrated our Day of Gratitude in hosting an event that would support the Homeless Period Ireland initiative. Homeless Period Ireland encourages people to donate sanitary products to homeless women, and then these items are distributed to various charities around the city that will give them to women in need. Learn more about their initiative here. 

For our Day of Gratitude we hosted an event that would educate students on the issue of Period Poverty on both a global and a local scale. Period Poverty is when women have a lack of access to sanitary products, menstrual hygiene education, hand washing facilities, and/or toilets. This is an issue that impacts women around the world in both developed and developing countries. 

Our Day of Gratitude event consisted of a screening of the Oscar Award winning documentary Period. End of Sentence, a discussion on Period Poverty, then with the students packing over 200 sanitary products to donate to a Homeless Period Ireland collection point at Trinity College Dublin. To kick off our Day of Gratitude event, we had a screening of the Oscar Award winning documentary Period. End of Sentence. This is a short documentary that focuses on women in India who are fighting the stigma surrounding menstruation and begin to make and sell their own sanitary pads for them to be accessible. The documentary is available to stream on Netflix and has a runtime of approximately 30 minutes. 

Following this, we had a discussion about the issue of Period Poverty both on a global and local scale. Through this discussion we watched several interviews of women affected by Period Poverty, an interview with Amika George - the teenager that founded the Free Periods campaign in the UK, and we learned ways to begin to make a change and help end Period Poverty. 

Afterwards, our students packed up our donations (over 200 products!) and made their way to one of the Homeless Period Ireland collection points at Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union. Thank you to Aisling Leen who stayed after-hours at the Trinity College Dublin Student Union to allow us to donate our items! 

Period Poverty is a real issue that is impacting women around the world daily. A way to contribute to these initiatives to end Period Poverty is to buy an extra pack at the store when going shopping and donating it to a charity or homeless shelter, educate yourselves on the issue, and talk about it!

We would also like to thank Lyanne Wasserman and her husband for the generous support in conducting our Day of Gratitude.