A girl who cannot manage her period safely at school will stay at home. A week a month, month after month, and she falls behind her classmates through no fault of her own — until falling behind turns into dropping out altogether.
Red Days takes sanitary pads and underwear directly into schools, and pairs the supplies with honest, practical menstrual health education. We teach the girls, and we teach the boys too, because the silence and the teasing do as much damage as the lack of pads. Sessions are run in the classroom, in plain language, by people the students can ask real questions of.
We also train teachers and help schools set up a pad bank they keep stocked themselves, so a girl caught out on an ordinary Tuesday has somewhere to go long after our team has driven home.
From the field
