What do you think about having an eco-friendly period? Take our survey to let us know

Many of you may already know that we have been working hard with Carmarthenshire County Council and supporters on our #PeriodPovertySirGâr project. For the past year our #PeriodPovertySirGâr has been supplying over 177,760 free sanitary products to all schools, youth clubs, projects and organisations for all young girls to access and use at any time.

BUT WE HAVE NEWS…
We are so excited to be able to continue our work for another year thanks to a Welsh Government Period Dignity Grant, Carmarthenshire County Council has given us more money, a total of £13,437 to spend on a range of sanitary/period products to give to young girls and females, as well as being FREE, products will be made accessible with no fuss, no hassle and no quesitons.

Thank you all for your support and for helping this project grow and become such a success within the county and we hope you are as excited as we are to see the next chapter of our work make its debut!

GET INVOLVED AND HAVE YOUR SAY…

Last year we bought ‘traditional’ period products but to give young girls and females more choice we are encouraging you to think about eco-friendly, reusable and environmentally sustainable products such as moon cups, reusable pads and period pants.

We need to spend all the money on products that you need and want so the first step is to find out your views on using reusable or eco-friendly sanitary products as this is one option we are considering and we would love for you to help us out by completing a short survey or by commenting below.

STAY TUNED…
Remember to follow us on our socials #PeriodPovertySirGâr to see how your views have influenced the project and keep updated on what happens;

Twitter – @Youth_SirGâr
Facebook – Carmarthenshire Youth Council
Instagram – @Youth_SirGâr
Email – info@carmarthenshire.gov.uk
Contact Us

Thank you once again!

Article by
Freya and Amber

We’ve been very busy and working hard over the last few months on our #PeriodPovertySirGar project.  It began as a small campaign to raise awareness on Period Poverty and the impact it has on young girls and has grown into a project tackling period poverty by supplying over 177,760 FREE sanitary products to all schools, youth clubs, projects and organisations for all young girls to access and use at any time.

The #PeriodPovertySirGâr project was officially launched at our Annual General Meeting in April. Boxes containing free sanitary products have been distributed around the County thanks to the hard work of our members, and support from Carmarthenshire County Council’s Youth Support Service and Education Department and funding from the Welsh Government.

We are very proud of what our project has achieved and the support that we have had from schools, projects and organisations across Carmarthenshire. We were over the moon to have received the support of a major national retailer, The Body Shop in Carmarthen has agreed to stock free sanitary products to make sure girls have access to adequate protection during their period over the summer holidays.

Our members Amber Treharne and Freya Sperinck who are leading the project said: “We are very excited that The Body Shop in Carmarthen are working alongside us on the #PeriodPovertySirGâr project! It is amazing that The Body Shop want to keep our box of free products and a supply of free sanitary protection in store for young girls to collect especially outside of school hours. This is a massive step in the right direction for tackling period poverty within the county.”

Store manager at The Body Shop Abigail Williams said “When we found out the statistics that 1 in 10 girls in the UK don’t have access to these products we were shocked and wanted to do something to help. Doing a bit of googling I came across articles and the Facebook page about #PeriodPovertySirGâr and was impressed with what the girls have achieved in the local area already.”

Period Products available with
NO FUSS, NO HASSLE, NO QUESTIONS!

Help raise awareness and show your support, join in the conversation on social media by using #PeriodPovertySirGar

On Thursday the 20th of November 2014 in order to coincide with the 25th Anniversary of Universal Children’s rights Day we held our Annual Youth Conference.

The decision was to focus on the topic of domestic abuse following consultation with young people across the county. Young people were asked what issues were most important to them and effected them the most on a day to day basis.

Young people were given an insight on what domestic abuse is and given a chance to discuss their perception of Domestic Abuse.

It was good to see that most young people could identify the 5 main themes of domestic abuse. None, however, were able to define domestic abuse.

At the end of 2014 Carmarthenshire Youth Council attended a meeting of the Carmarthenshire Children and Young People’s Partnership (CYPP) to provide feedback on the conference and to highlight the main findings of this report.

Euro child was a conference that  recognised children’s rights. This year’s conference was called ‘Children’s Rights Matter’: Why Europe needs to invest in children, aims to take stock of progress, address ongoing challenges, share good practice and bring together different perspectives. When we first got to Brussels there was a conference opening where many people spoke of Euro Child including the Euro Child President and the Queen of Brussels. We then had a welcome dinner where we got to meet other young people who were involved with Euro Child.

In our time at Brussels, I took part in 2 workshops and a study visit. The first workshop was ‘Participation in child protection: essential for sustainable safety for children and families with disabilities’. Within this workshop, we were shown how people with psychological disabilities feel in everyday life and how different countries have different policies regarding child protection. The second workshop was ‘How will we leave the world for children – the time capsule’. This was taken by two young people who were members of Children’s Forum society ‘our children’ Opatija, Croatia. Within this workshop, I learnt that the way we live our lives now will affect young people in the future. The study visit was ‘Vrienden van het Huizeken: an association of people in poverty’ we all found this very interesting – it was a house where homeless people could go to spend a few hours in the afternoon and have a drink, there were also support classes for parents to help their children with things like homework, this enabled more children to finish secondary school in Brussels.

Finally, there was a scheme to have housing for homeless people for a 6-12 month period to find a job and get off the streets. We then had a conference dinner followed by a disco to get to know other young people from around Europe. On the final day there was a human library, where young people and adults would tell their story. The first one that we listened to was about ‘Brexit’. This was a story about the campaign and how it would affect the UK, we found this very interesting as got to hear the opinion of other young people from the UK but also from around Europe and how they felt about the UK leaving Europe. The last story we listened to was ‘My normal gay family and me’. This was about a young person from Northern Ireland who lived with two mothers, this was very interesting as no one else in our group lived in a country where gay marriage was legal. Overall, we enjoyed the experience and found many aspects of it interesting and I learned so much from the experience.

By Jessica Rees