Stockport’s Cabinet Member for Education, Dean Fitzpatrick, has been working with Council Officers from the local authority to raise awareness in relation to period poverty.

Period poverty affects millions of women and girls worldwide, who struggle to afford or access sanitary protection. The impacts of period poverty are huge, with many of those affected missing education and employment.

To support schools to address this issue through the curriculum, they have been signposted to a number of resources, as well as being able to sign up for free sanitary products through the Always Education Programme.

We are working closely with a company who have kindly donated a large quantity of sanitary products to the Authority. Our aim is to get the products into as many establishments in the community as possible to support those individuals whose lives may be affected by period poverty.

Stockport Foodbanks and Stockport Homes are just two of the organisations that we are working with at present.

This initiative aims to begin to address the growing issue of ‘period poverty’, we appreciate that there is further work to be done and we would like to extend the programme into the wider community.

Speaking about the issue- Cllr Fitzpatrick said:

“Every day of a young person’s education is really important, and no pupil should miss a day of school through period poverty.

“Our aim is that no young woman should miss a day through lack of access to these products, and it is my hope that these measures we have put together across Stockport go some way to achieving that.

“I’m really pleased to be working in partnership with organisations who want to support young women’s access to basic hygiene products”

 

This is on top of a number of other initiates the Council is taking on this including the Red Box Project (link)

 

ENDS