Arkansas Period Action Day: Closing Speech 2019

    "I went to yoga this week for the first time ever and at the end of the class the instructor said this quote: 'strong people stand up for themselves, but stronger people stand up for others.' That is why I am here before you today.
    Just like Emmarie, last year, I started reading Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement by Nadya Okamoto, the creator and president of Period, and it opened my eyes to a human right’s issue I knew nothing about. Period poverty is defined as the inability to purchase or access period products. This is not just an issue in India or African countries. This is an issue in our own community. 

    The homeless woman you passed on your way here, she didn’t have enough money to buy a pad, so she used cardboard that she found. The incarcerated woman who can’t afford to buy period products in the commissary, she had to use stuffing from her mattress. The single mother that you sat next to in church last week, she had to choose between buying food and buying tampons. She chose to buy dinner. The girl you saw at the bus stop on your way to work yesterday, she just missed four days of school because toilet paper only lasts for so long. 

    The menstruators in our community are suffering in silence. They are missing work and school. They are putting themselves at risk for severe gynecological infections and diseases. Why? Because these products are unaffordable and inaccessible. 

    Our government refuses to acknowledge this human rights issue and public health crisis. Our government continues to tax period products as luxury items. Our government does not allow people to purchase period products using SNAP or WIC. Our government refuses to let homeless shelters use state and federal money to buy period products for their residents. Our government refuses to provide adequate funding to our public schools, so school nurses are no longer able to provide a pad to a bleeding student. 

    Enough is enough. Our menstruators deserve better. We all deserve better. We deserve to be able to go to work and school. We deserve to not have to worry about health problems from using cardboard, socks, and plastic bags as pads. We deserve period products that are affordable. We deserve for period products to be considered the basic hygiene necessity that they are. We deserve to buy period products using SNAP and WIC. We deserve for period products to be FREE in our homeless shelters, prisons, and schools. Enough is enough. We deserve better. And we are demanding it."

- Katie Clark, MPH, MPS, Founder of the Arkansas Period Poverty Project -


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Arkansas Period Action Day: Closing Speech 2022

She still remembers the first time she got her period on a December morning in 7th grade, horrified as she quietly struggled, grappling with intense pains throughout the entirety of her lower abdomen. While she was unsure of what exactly was happening, she knew that it was meant to remain a secret. A secret. She accepted that it was a secret—not to be shared. She was okay with sacrificing her desire for knowledge to elude societal embarrassment. Even at the age of 12, she acknowledged these hefty restraints. As questions swirled throughout her head about what was happening to her, she wondered if she was dying. Would she be okay? Why could she not figure out what was wrong with her?  She genuinely was questioning whether something was wrong with her –whether she was broken. This is the story of too many young individuals, myself included. All of these issues could have been avoided by improving menstrual education in schools and implementing comprehensive programs. Our menstruators sh
Read more

Who are we?

Image
Striving for menstrual equity in Arkansas through donations, education, and legislation. The Arkansas Period Poverty Project was founded in 2018 by Katie Clark after she read "Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement" by PERIOD founder, Nadya Okamoto. She began by reaching out to all of the public middle and high school principals in Little Rock and asked them if their students struggled with period poverty, a majority said yes.  She created a GoFundMe, had friends and family donate, purchased products, and donated them to schools in Little Rock. In 2019 we grew, adding on an Education Coordinator, Communications Coordinator, and Outreach Coordinators. In October 2019, we helped put on the first Arkansas Period Action Day rally with speakers, giveaways, and over 100 attendees. In 2020, just like everyone else, we had to pivot. We no longer held educational meetings in person, but started interviewing experts on topics like PCOS and endometriosis and posted those v
Read more

My First Period

Our first blog series: The stories of our first periods I started my period when I was 10 years old. My mom never talked to me about what a period was or why I bleed in the first place. I was only told what to do when I bleed. I used the same product that mom used, which were pretty thick maxi pads. I was taught that this was a discreet thing, that no one needed to know that I was on my period. So, if I started my period away from home, it was a nightmare. I was so afraid to tell the adult I was with, I didn't tell my sisters, I didn't know how to take my pad to the restroom with out someone noticing. I would spend weekends bleeding through toilet paper and underwear because I was so afraid to ask someone for help. I couldn't tell anyone about the cramps, then they would know I was on my period. It was a dirty secret and I had NEVER heard anyone talk about periods except my mom and that awful video we had to watch in 5th grade.  I remember a girl being in the bathroom at sc
Read more