The Menstruation Equity team formed in January 2021 to tackle three goals:

1. Raise Awareness - Bring attention to what menstruation equity means, the local facts and stats, and how people can get involved to make change

2. Advocate for Change - Advocating for free menstrual products in our community and following up with both school boards on their promises to provide free menstrual projects to students. 

3. Take Action - create a fundraiser to raise money and products to give to Bridging the gap, a Halton organization for homeless and street-involved youth. 

​

The group members included: Gabrielle Dymock, Farrah Laufer, Birva Pandya, Claire Roufaeil, Jyot Sangha, Hannah Schensema, Amber Siddiqui, and Sasha Thomas.

We chose this topic because everyone deserves to have access to menstruation products. We were shocked to discover that significant amounts of young people in Canada face difficulty in affording period products each month. 

The following organizations were super helpful in helping us brainstorm, learn new topics and have expert support in our journey Bridging the Gap, Halton Children’s Aid Society, HDSB Student Council, HCDSB Student Council, RE:SOUL Youth Centre, Town of Milton and Shoppers Drugs Mart.

Specifically, we would like to thank Mike Burns, Brenna Daigle, Kevin Schilz and Anish Shirodker for your support of our fundraiser. 

Highlights include:

• Goal #1: Created several carousel posts for Instagram to raise awareness on menstruation equity, Bridging the Gap, and to promote the Crafting for a Cause campaign

• Goal #2: Advocated for free access to menstrual products in meetings with MP Adam Van Koeverden and Parm Gill. Follow up with HDSB and HCDSB Student Trustee representatives to get updates on the school board's promises to bring free menstrual products to schools. 

• Goal #3: Our crafting for a cause fundraiser raised $450 and collected over 40 boxes of pads/tampons. We had a donation bin at Shoppers Drug Mart at Kennedy Circle in Milton for 3 weeks. We had an outdoor craft sale at the RE:SOUL youth parking lot and a reporter from Inside Halton came and featured our event.