BOSSES at a Scottish shopping mall have handed a boost to a campaign aiming to tackle period poverty.
Intu Braehead has donated £500 to Tracy Skelton, from Govan, Glasgow, who is buying sanitary products to give out to those who can’t afford to buy them.
Skelton is a support worker at Govan High School and also runs local dance group the Sass Squad.
Along with girls from the dance group, Skelton teamed up with the Govan Community Project to launch the Sass Squad Sanitary Search Appeal.
She approached the shopping centre for a donation and the £500 intu Gift Card they gave her bought more than 600 sanitary products.
Having become aware of the prevalence of period poverty in her local community, Skelton initially left a box of sanitary products in the toilet at her dance school, based in St Kenneth’s Church, Linthouse.
She said: “It wasn’t until I explained to the pupils why the box was there that I realised just how badly our generation deals with talk of periods.
“Not one of the pupils, who are all over the age of 12, knew what Toxic Shock Syndrome was and most didn’t know of any supplies of sanitary products that were free apart from the ones I provided.
“I live in what may be described as a deprived area and I’ve seen first hand that families need as much help as possible.”
Skelton added: “It’s said that one in five women are going without sanitary products purely down to money issues and having to provide for their families.
“The main goal of the Sass Squad Sanitary Search is to help our community, but we also want to stop the concept of periods as being hush-hush.
“We can’t thank intu Braehead enough for their donation, as it’s going to help many women and teenage girls.”
Lydia Brown, intu Braehead’s community development manager, said: “The issue of period poverty has only quite recently began to be spoken about more openly, even though a women’s periods are something that directly affects half the population. We hope we have done something to help women and teenage girls not only get free products and encouraged people to talk more about the issue.”
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