Animation by Lieke Milder / W+K
How can we describe how much we’ve loved discovering our posters around Amsterdam without using too many exclamation points? (Jump to the bottom for a gallery with a bunch of the posters and stickers in the wild!)
A huge thank you and fist-bump to all the allies and volunteers who rolled up their sleeves and pitched in to help get more people thinking and talking about period poverty. You, us, we did this.
Does this sound a bit over-excited?
Here’s the thing: we face serious challenges in our community, in this city and country, in this one world we all share. The bad news is right there in front of us, day in and day out; half the time, we can’t even imagine the struggles faced by those we pass in the street.
As we see it, all the bad news is all the more reason to take positive, constructive action. Taking action just plain feels good, yes, but very importantly, we see the connection and community you all reinforce when you join collaborative actions like ours. When you normalize things like talking about periods and period poverty.
We celebrate the successes, no matter how small or subtle, because they are as real as the bad news. Those successes, made possible by so many of you, give hope that we can build momentum toward structural solutions that eradicate period poverty in this city. The approximately 26,000 people in Amsterdam who currently struggle with period poverty deserve to have safe, healthy and un-stressful periods.
While we are working toward that long-term goal, people need help now. So a huge thank you to the businesses, NGOs and individuals who stepped up and so generously gave. We simply cannot stock Dignity Kits or Menstruation Stations without structural support like yours. We’ll be spotlighting some of you in future posts, because you show how a community can come together, and you deserve to shine.
And just like that, our campaign ends. But our work doesn’t: new support means we now have more Menstruation Stations to install and more Dignity Kits to deliver.
However you choose to mark this holiday season, we hope you continue to build on good conversations about the basic right of menstrual hygiene. (Even at the dinner table!) We hope to overhear you echoing what more and more of us are saying: that a city as wealthy as Amsterdam shouldn’t have a period poverty problem. And that nobody should have to choose between tampons and food.
Onward to 2022!
