Jacinta Gulasekharam

Jacinta Gulasekharam is 23 years old and is Co-founder/General Manager of Dignity – a social enterprise creating access to period products for women in the workplace and for students in New Zealand schools going without. Dignity has ten corporate partnerships including ANZ, Xero, Chapman Tripp, Russell McVeagh, Flick Electric and Cigna. This has resulted in 105 New Zealand schools, women’s organisations and youth organisations having access to period products thanks to their buy one give one model. As a result of the Dignity initiative women in the corporates feeling 85% more personally supported and 72% of the schools have reported that the students were able to stay at school during their period.

Period Justice Positive Periods is a new campaign calling for free access to period products in New Zealand schools alongside better menstruation education.

Why is it called Positive Periods you may ask? Positive Periods want every young person to have a positive and dignified experience with their period, regardless of the decile of the school that you attend.

Menstruation is not a choice. Jacinta is leading a catalyst team wanting to bring people together around a purpose - preventing period poverty with policy solutions.

Ultimately what they want is for no student to ever be caught short, feel embarrassed or not have the financial means to access period products.

Come along to this morning talk about how this campaign come about, what global examples there are for free period product access and how you can support the campaign.