According to a MedScape article, women and families are the fastest growing groups of homeless people in the United States.
Homeless women face different challenges than men, however, especially when it comes to the taboo topic of menstrual hygiene.
The Toronto Star explains, “For women without housing, or with limited income, managing their periods is unavoidable, complicated and often expensive. It means that once a month the stressors of life on the margins— where to sleep, what to eat, and how to stay safe and maintain dignity— are compounded by the challenges of staying healthy and clean during their menstrual cycle.”
One 14-year-old girl, after learning about the struggles homeless women face in regards to menstrual hygiene, is now going out of her way to make difference!
Lily Alter learned about this issue after doing research for a grade-9 English class project. The teacher had asked her students to write a mock grant proposal about a social issue of their choosing.
To CBS Chicago, Lily explains, “I thought about homelessness, I thought about women’s rights, and I wanted to combine it in a way that I thought I could actually help people.”
She quickly learned about the problems homeless women were facing in regards to their menstrual cycles, telling CBS Chicago:
“I didn’t realize how big this burden was for so many women.”
Lily wasn’t content just writing a mock grant proposal, however— she wanted to help these women for real. So, she came up with a plan, even raising funds to make it happen.
Lily created ‘Flowing Forward’, a program where she puts together menstrual hygiene kits and distributes them to homeless women in her Chicago community.
Lily used GoFundMe to raise funds for the project, and at the time of her interview with CBS News, had raised about $3,000.
She tells them, “With the money I’ve made now, I could probably maybe have a year’s worth of kits for the women in the Oak Park Shelter.”
Since that time, however, her GoFundMe page shows that she’s raised a whopping amount— over $11,500— which has allowed her to add additional hygiene services to Flowing Forward.
On the page, she writes, “Due to the generosity of our donors, we have also been able to start producing incontinence kits including 20 bladder pads and 14 sanitary wipes.”
People are extremely impressed by the young girl’s initiative, writing comments such as:
It’s amazing what can be accomplished with some research, drive, and a whole lot of passion— especially for topic considered as taboo as this one!
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