![]() ![]() This is something that should be covered by Medicaid, Medicare, WIC or SNAP benefits. So we are out in the communities all over Philadelphia and the surrounding areas dropping off these five-month supplies of menstrual products. It is a comprehensive approach to menstrual health and well-being, so that people can live in dignity with their periods.Ī large part of the work that we do is community-oriented. It has running water and operable toilets. I opened up the menstrual hub, the SPOT Period, during the national pandemic. No More Secrets Mind Body Spirit Incorporated basically started off as a comprehensive sexuality awareness organization, but then it fed right into bodily autonomy, which fed right into period poverty. I received a lot of resistance, and I still do, with the work that I do around sexuality-related topics. I didn’t even know what a period was when I got it, because there was no conversation about it. When I first got my menstrual cycle, or my period, I remember, when I told my mother about it, and it was just like, don’t tell anyone else, and now you’re a woman, so now you have to act different. So, when you think about those populations, half of those populations are actually in period poverty.Īnd our communities - and I’m a Black woman - we do not talk about sexuality-related topics at all. And most of the time, when you think of poverty, you think of housing insecurity, food insecurity, and things like that. ![]() Period poverty is the inability to access menstrual hygiene products. ![]() I will have to have sex with people I didn’t want to have sex with.” She looked me right in the face and she said: “Miss Lynette, how do you expect me to respect and protect my body, when, one week out the mouth, I have to resort to the most horrendous things just to get access to menstrual products? I will have to steal. Lynette Medley, Founder and CEO, No More Secrets Mind Body Spirit: I remember this young person, and I will call her Holly. Tonight, Medley offers her Brief But Spectacular take on ending period poverty. Judy Woodruff: Lynette Medley is the founder and CEO of No More Secrets Mind Body Spirit, a comprehensive sexual health and awareness organization.īased in Philadelphia, Medley and her team started by delivering menstrual products door to door to underserved communities and have since established a groundbreaking menstrual hub. ![]()
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