Our Campaign ‘No Period Left Behind’ hosted a fashion show and fundraiser to raise money and awareness for period poverty.
We decided we would create the campaign after having trouble ourselves as women who also have to buy sanitary products.
Seven women, from Fashion Soc society, modelled both sustainable clothes from the SU’s Swap Shop and original crochet designs by Nicola, one of the models.

Emily Price, a guest of the show, said: “When the models were walking down the stairs to that empowering music, it was just such an amazing atmosphere.”
As well as the fashion show we sold vagina cakes and tampon cookies, hosted a talk by Friends of Irise and held a raffle, all the money from which was donated to Irise International.

All across Sheffield vulnerable women are missing out on necessary sanitary products. On average, people with periods spend £13 per month on sanitary products but for hundreds of women in our local area this is simply not an expense they can stretch to.
Overall, including our GoFundMe, we raised £385 which will go towards not just products themselves but also educating people in Sheffield about period poverty.
Amy Malone, from Friends of Irise, said: “Period poverty’ means being unable to access sanitary products and having a poor knowledge of menstruation often due to financial constraints.
“When we talk of the word ‘woman’ we use words like strong and powerful but when we talk of the word ‘period’ we use words like gross and annoying.”
Irise International is all about removing the stigma of periods and we tried to reflect this message at our event. With our scarily realistic vagina cakes and even scarier period poverty statistics, we aimed to both educate and destigmatize.
Will Devey, a male guest of the fundraiser, said: “I was flabbergasted to hear that statistic about spending three grand in your lifetime on period products, I never realised it cost that much.
“I absolutely know more now than I did before, not just about period poverty but periods in general.”
As well as raising money for Irise International, we also had Free Flow selling their sustainable period raising money for Menstruation Matters, another Sheffield based period poverty charity .
Helen Hui, social marketing officer of Free Flow said: “We’re trying to promote zero waste, every year thousands of period products end up going to places that damage our environment. Often people just dump them. So we are trying to provide a sustainable alternative so everyone can use more eco-friendly products.”