To mark Period Poverty Awareness Week, shopping destination centre:mk has launched a scheme in partnership with Milton Keynes charity, Girl Pack, to tackle period poverty and make sanitary products easily and discretely available to all.
Baskets of period products can now be found in the centre toilets, located in the Guest Services Lounge, which will be free for guests to take should they need them. Visitors can also go to Guest Services and ask for a “package for Sue” and receive a full pack of sanitary products in a plain bag.
One in ten girls in the UK struggle to afford period products and over 137,000 children have missed a day of school because of this. More people are finding period products increasingly inaccessible, leading to girls missing out on vital education, activities and the already overwhelming nature of menstruation becoming even more of a barrier.
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“We believe that everyone should have access to period products when they need them, so we are very excited to announce our partnership with Girl Pack and that we will be providing free sanitary products in the centre," said centre director, Kevin Duffy, "We hope that this scheme will relieve some of the financial burden of periods on our guests and get people talking more about period poverty.”
Jenny Head, spokesperson from Girl Pack said: “So far this year we have provided over 5000 period products to various places across Milton Keynes. Girl Pack are proud to be working with centre:mk to support everyone's period! This campaign and partnership will go a long way to raising awareness of period poverty.”
Girl Pack is a charity from Milton Keynes that provides period products to schools, organisations and businesses in the local area. They run entirely on donations of funds and products and volunteers to put together the packs and deliver them.
For more information on Girl Pack and how you can help, visit their Facebook page where you can find out about the work they do and make a donation.
