For more than 500 million women and girls around the world, access to menstrual products is nonexistent. The term “period poverty” describes the struggle faced by people who don’t have adequate menstrual supplies and education. 

Days for Girls is a global nonprofit offering dignity and health to women and girls by providing sustainable menstrual kits. Volunteers around the world sew, assemble and distribute the kits, allowing girls to stay in school, attend work and alleviate health concerns that arise when menstrual products are unavailable. 

Suzanne Walker runs the Midvale chapter of Days for Girls, along with her friend Jennifer Woods and lots of volunteers. The chapter has created and distributed nearly 2,000 kits to Thailand, Mexico, Vietnam, Fiji, Morocco, Zimbabwe, Peru, Cambodia and Nepal. 

“We not only sew components, we are also a source of outreach for our community,” Walker said. “We advocate on behalf of Days for Girls International, teaching about its mission and the reasons why there is a need for such an organization to exist. We also conduct work events with local churches and business groups, in which they help create the kits that will then be distributed throughout the world.”

Days for Girls was started in 2008 by Celeste Mergens. She was working at a Kenyan orphanage and found that menstruating girls would sit on pieces of cardboard, often going without food. With cultural taboos around menstruation, some women and girls can’t attend school or work, or even go into a kitchen while on their period. 

Mergens created washable, long-lasting pads and underwear, designed to last several years, giving the girls the freedom to leave their rooms, reclaim their dignity and potentially end the cycle of poverty. 

“The evolution of this pattern for these kits has changed many times,” Woods said. “They keep making it better and better. They listen to the girls and the moms, and the feedback that people give, and they fix any issues.”

The kits contain two pairs of underwear, two reusable shields, eight absorbent liners, a washcloth and soap for cleaning, and a waterproof bag to hold everything. Colorful fabrics help normalize menstruation and the components dry quickly to allow the women and girls to manage their hygiene. The waterproof bags are also used as a washing device in places where water is scarce. 

“Some girls and women walk miles and miles for water,” Woods said. “They have this very small amount of water to use for their cooking and their cleaning, so these bags become little washing machines.”

Walker said it’s a lot of work to create the kits and they have specific instructions to follow to ensure the pieces work together. But she calls it a “labor of love” for the thousands of women and girls their kits have helped over the years. The group holds service projects several times a year, where volunteers sew kit components. 

“Even in the United States, there are women who don't have access to period products,” Walker said. “There are hundreds of stories of lives being changed through Days for Girls. I love going into my community and talking about it, because we don’t talk about it. I talk to a lot of young women’s groups and they are super embarrassed, but they have no idea how lucky they are.”

To learn about volunteering or donating to the Days for Girls Midvale chapter, visit the Facebook page @dfgmidvale. For information about the international organization, visit DaysForGirls.org.