“Girls in Canada miss school” due to not being able to afford period products: Period Promise Program launches in Northern BC

PRINCE GEORGE–A local non-profit will be able to supply menstrual products for free to vulnerable women in the community for a year.

The Sexual Assault Centre is one of 12, and the only non-profit in Northern BC to benefit from the United Way’s year-long, Period Promise program. The program was launched in the Lower Mainland last year, but this it’s first year in Northern BC.

Period poverty is an issue in the country, “One in seven girls in school in Canada miss school because they don’t have access to menstrual products,” said United Way’s Northern BC CEO, Roberta Squire.

Executive Director of the PG Sexual Assault Centre, Lynelle Halikowski says that she has seen a demand for the products at the centre, “we buy feminine hygiene products for the staff, or the odd person. What we’ve experienced is they’re all gone all the time.” Halikowski says that periods are a normal part of life for women and that “we shouldn’t have to not be able to participate in community life because of it.”