A group of Paraparaumu students have joined forces with Kāpiti College students to promote sustainable period products.
The group is made up of five girls, Zoe Boyd, Chrislyn Saquilayan, Sophie Tinworth, Mirissa Dusautoy, and Frankie Crawford, who all share the belief that periods have an undeserved stigma attached to them.
Originally, the girls banded together for a project for their Year 12 health class where they had to do a health promoting action that would enhance wellbeing, but now they’ve taken it to the next level.
After a talk at their school by “waste-free warrior” Kate Meads, the five girls learned a lot about sustainable period products and wanted to educate others.
“We started because we had an assessment to do, and we thought ‘what is something we can actually make a change with’,” Boyd said.
“We went to a meeting at school where someone promoted these, and we were like, most of us haven’t heard about it and that means other people haven’t heard about it.
“We want to spread awareness and help educate people.”
The girls started promoting their cause at a class event, where each group had made a posterboard of their ideas.
The group’s board had a lot of information about sustainable period products, and QR codes that led to videos about how to use them.
The event ran alongside the college’s pride event and bake sale, which attracted a lot of students, so the girls said a lot of people saw their idea.
Their teacher, Brenda McKenzie, thought the girls were doing an amazing thing, and recommended they apply for the Kāpiti Coast District Council’s Think Big Initiative.
After applying online and attending an interview at Zeal they were granted $400.
The girls made a board to promote their cause. Photo / Grace Odlum
The girls discovered that Kāpiti College’s health class was doing a similar project, so they were able to join forces with another group of like-minded girls.
The two groups met at Kāpiti College on Thursday, and they shared ideas, but due to the project being for an assessment they had to be a bit careful with what they were sharing.
“From the beginning we knew we wanted to push this further than the assessment, that’s why we went to Kāpiti College, because if we target the schools then we could make the younger students aware,” Tinworth said.
“By getting the health department involved, they can start educating classes because they would be able to reach more kids.”
The council even awarded the girls an additional $400 due to their partnership, and the $800 total was split between the two schools.
The group at Paraparaumu College wanted to take it further though, and they were offered discounted sustainable period products from AWWA Period Care, a New Zealand-owned company that sells period-proof underwear, so they plan on using the money from the grant to run a raffle where other students could win sustainable products.
They also want to buy period products for Paraparaumu College’s health department, so students could be better educated about what periods are.
“We just want to inspire positive change to our community, especially females, by giving them a sustainable option that’s good for the planet and their bodies,” Saquilayan said.
“We also hope that by talking about periods ourselves and promoting it that it will make other people feel more comfortable to then go talk about periods and products and the options out there,” Boyd added.
“Currently, it’s still a bit of an uncomfortable topic, and not very normalised, so we hope it’s a topic that can start to get more recognition.”
