Students pool money to put pads in school bathrooms

In recent years, much has been discussed about combating menstrual poverty, which is the lack of access to products to absorb menstrual flow. This debate takes place mainly in schools, since the absence of these products impacts school attendance. With that in mind, a group of students decided to raise money to include pads in the school bathroom.

Collection on the streets

This fact happened in the US state of North Carolina, more precisely in the suburb of Asheville. This group from The Asheville Middle School met a few times to raise money for the purpose of to supply the restrooms at her school with pads and other products that help with menstruation.

The first time they got together, they managed to raise around US$ 1,300, which is an amount equivalent to R$ 6,500 in the current dollar exchange rate. After a successful first campaign, they decided to carry out a new action to restock the restrooms.

This time, they managed to raise US$900, which is equivalent to approximately R$4,500.

Furthermore, the group drew a lot of attention from the local community, since this campaign did not just happen at the school. In fact, students made a large part of these collections in the streets.

In this case, they took posters to the streets in strategic places where they asked for people's contribution.

The need for pads in schools

There is a growing debate about the importance of ensuring access to products that help control and absorb menstrual flow to teenagers. This is because menstrual poverty is still one of the causes of poor performance school or even dropping out of basic training.

Therefore, there are already initiatives in the law for the free supply of these products in public schools. For example, here in Brazil there are already policies for the distribution of pads in schools in at least 13 of our federative units.

In addition, in 2022 the Senate approved a law to distribute sanitary pads to low-income women in Brazil.