This year the UJS Period Poverty campaign is excitingly moving online, making it more accessible, and hopefully more impactful, than ever before! UJS, alongside external student campaign organiser Sara Felberg, have arranged both an information campaign and a photography competition to encourage people to donate to Bloody Good Period, one of the biggest Period Poverty Charities in the country. The information campaign is designed to stimulate learning and conversations amongst Jewish students about those who are most likely to face period poverty; issues such as intersectionality, taxation and the law, and sustainable alternatives to pads and tampons are all approached in the campaign. To read more about the information pack please click here.
Alongside this, Jewish students across the country have been sending in their most outrageously red outfits to be in for a chance of winning one of our 5 UJS Period Poverty Shirt! If you wish to enter please email [email protected], however the competition does end on the 12th March! We also greatly encourage you to donate to Bloody Good Period and share our educational resources, your pictures in red, and the fundraising link on your own social media pages!
Excitingly, this is the third year UJS has run the Period Poverty campaign after Sara Felberg passed a motion at Conference of December 2018. On the 8th March 2019, UJS supported a handful of JSocs, including Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham to hold the first ever Period Poverty Action Day! Some J-Socs decided to hold it in Jewish communal spaces such as their Hillel Houses which was a great way to increase J-Soc participation. Others decided to hold it in their student unions, which increased the campaigns exposure to non-Jewish students on campus! The day was hugely successful, with thousands of pads and tampons being donated to Bloody Good Period and other local charities in the fight to help end period poverty.
Last academic year, UJS had planned to take this campaign to the next level. Recruiting representatives from Leeds, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, York, Glasgow, Brighton and Sussex, Belfast, LSE, Middlesex, Durham, Manchester, UEA and Nottingham. Through a group on Facebook UJS Sabbatical officers were able offer support and create an environment where different JSocs could share ideas and suggestions until they could decide what was best for their university. Sadly, due to coronavirus not all our J-Socs were able to carry out their campaigns. However, this year we have created a corona-proof campaign and we are more ready than ever to tackle period poverty as a community!