WUNRN
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/14/homeless-women-tampons_n_6465230.html
For Homeless Women, Getting Your Period Is One of the Most Difficult Challenges
By Eleanor Goldberg – January
14, 2015
Homeless women
typically know where to find a safe place to sleep or a hot meal to eat. But
when it comes to taking care of their feminine hygiene needs, they often have
nowhere to turn.
Tampons and
sanitary pads usually top the list of needs at shelters, since they’re pricey
and supporters don’t often donate them, social workers told Al
Jazeera. Compounding the issue is the fact that clean showers are also scarce,
and not washing during menstruation can lead to infections.
It’s a desperate
situation that many homeless women feel resigned to accept.
"I’ll never
be clean," a young woman living on the streets of San Francisco
once told Doniece Sandoval, the entrepreneur behind Lava Mae, a mobile shower
program, according to Nation Swell.
Maribel Guillet,
36, is all too familiar with that despondent feeling.
Guillet, who
lives in a Bronx, New York, homeless shelter, typically
menstruates for about 10 days and experiences heavy bleeding, she
told Al Jazeera. But because of the shelter’s strict restrictions, she can’t
always use the restroom as often as she needs to.
The fact that
menstruation is a taboo topic to begin with, means that people who are able
help, often aren’t even aware that such a vast need exists.
While donating
clothes to a homeless day center in Camden, New Jersey, back in 2009, Joanie
Balderstone and her partner, Rebecca McIntire, asked the women there what else
they really needed.
The overwhelming
consensus was
pads and tampons, the couple wrote on their organization’s website.
That interaction
is what spurred the pair to found Distributing Dignity, a nonprofit that donates bras and
feminine hygiene products to women in need.
A few months
later, they hosted their first "Mardi Bra" party, according to Philly.com.
Guests donated 80 new bras and hundreds of feminine products that the founders
distributed to shelters in Camden.
They’ve since
expanded to help shelters throughout South Jersey and Philadelphia.
Gaining access
to such an everyday item has proved to be invaluable to the women Distributing
Dignity helps.
When residents
at Camden County Women's Center, which supports survivors of domestic abuse,
recently got shipment of sanitary napkins, they were thrilled to see that the
box contained pads of varying sizes.
"It sounds silly," Jeen Moncayo, a case worker at the center, told Philly.com, "but the choice is empowering."