Former student Amelia Tattam has been fighting to end period poverty since learning how inaccessible pads and tampons could be to young people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She previously rallied her peers around the issue and had them do a questionnaire.<\/p>\n
“We were really shocked to find a lot of students within our school were dealing with period poverty and were struggling with access to the products,” Ms Tattam said.<\/p>\n
“Periods being a barrier to education and confidence was something that we were really passionate about fixing. So we came together and we created a pitch.”<\/p>\n
The student group lobbied the ACT Education Directorate to fund free period products via dispensers in school bathrooms.<\/p>\n
Ms Tattam’s vision is now a reality.<\/p>\n
Expansion to 31 schools\u00a0<\/p>\n
The government will expand its existing period poverty pilot program to install bathroom dispensers at 31 public schools.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Yvetter Berry says the ACT government wants to end period poverty. (ABC News: David Sciasci)<\/p>\n
Participating high schools will have pads and tampons available, with pads accessible at some primary schools.<\/p>\n
The schools will also work to provide better information to students about menstruation and challenge unhelpful stigmas.<\/p>\n
Ms Tattam said it was “really special” to see the pilot grow.<\/p>\n
“It’s such a huge issue for so many people and it’s not spoken about very much at all,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We want to make it normal and we want to help drive that change.”<\/p>\n
The ACT became the first jurisdiction in Australia to guarantee access to free period products in 2023.<\/p>\n
“We’re excited in the ACT to be able to lead this project, but we’re also really excited to roll it out in our public school system, so that every student who needs to use period products can access them easily, for free,” ACT Education Minister Yvette Berry said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It means they can participate in their education in a range of different ways and it won’t hold them back.”Primary students in need<\/p>\n
Associate Principal of Gold Creek Primary School Amanda Molloy welcomes greater access to period products in schools. (ABC News: Ruby Thomas)<\/p>\n
Gold Creek Primary School associate principal Amanda Molloy said supporting Canberra’s younger students with period product access was vital.<\/p>\n
“Because as we know, children can get their period at a young age, and for some of our students, the first time they get their period is actually at school,” Ms Molloy said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“So, having those period products available to them in a space where they can access them with dignity is extremely important for our students.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Free period products can be accessed at more ACT government schools. (ABC News: David Sciasci)<\/p>\n
Ms Molloy said some grade 4 students at her school had experienced their first periods.<\/p>\n
“We’ve had some conversations with our students in year 4 about where to go and how to access those products, and what it means for them,” she said.<\/p>\n
“With the rollout of the pilot program, we’ve also been given \u2026 some learning resources for our students, which our teachers have delivered, and that’s been really successful too \u2014 for both male and female students to understand.”<\/p>\n
Ms Molloy said having the pads in the bathroom meant students could discreetly gain access, even if they felt uncomfortable approaching teachers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former student Amelia Tattam has been fighting to end period poverty since learning how inaccessible pads and tampons…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[39851,52084,64,63,52085,52086,15993,44,52083,15996,4211,28812],"class_list":["post-65391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-act-government","tag-amelia-tattam","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-free-pads-and-tampons","tag-free-period-products-in-act-schools","tag-menstruation","tag-news","tag-period-poverty","tag-period-products","tag-schools","tag-yvette-berry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}