A Bloody Good Cause & Homeless Periods - The Story

In the summer of 2015, we came across a project called ‘The Homeless Period’, which was gaining loads of traction online. The Homeless Period’s petition called for the Government to provide sanitary products to homeless women, just as they provided condoms and razors to homeless men.

We signed the petition and shared it amongst our friends, but the existence of such a blatant inequality in the system reminded us that the majority of policy makers are men and, once again, they had failed to take female needs into consideration.

Although this was less than three years ago, before 2015, periods didn’t seem to be an open topic of discussion. We didn’t pay much attention to our own periods and certainly didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about anyone else’s. The Homeless Period had opened our eyes to an injustice that went far beyond menstruation – it was gender inequality in action.

We decided to start our own project, ‘A Bloody Good Cause’, as a one off campaign to collect sanitary products for a homeless shelter in Liverpool. We started our social media accounts and a blog in order to spread the word and gather as many donations as possible but, in the process of doing this, our project expanded far beyond its original goal. Through our seven campaigns (to date), we have collected thousands of packs of sanitary products, worked on events pampering homeless women and campaigned for the abolition of the tampon tax.

Through our first campaign, we discovered that it wasn’t that people didn’t care about homeless women’s periods, they had simply never thought about them before. The menstrual taboo had caused everyone to keep their period a dirty little secret, which meant that many vulnerable women were forced to suffer in silence.

After our first campaign closed, we were under immediate demand to start a second. Since starting A Bloody Good Cause, we have worked with charities in Liverpool, Hertfordshire, Birmingham, Luton, Nottingham and all across London. We know that period poverty is a national issue (and also a global one) and we love to work with organisations all over the country in order to highlight the work they’re doing and help as many women as possible.

Our campaigns usually run in two month stints over Christmas, Easter and the summer (to fit around our day jobs), although we do end up collecting donations throughout the year for more impromptu projects/events and disasters such as the Grenfell Tower fire. 

Although we originally set out to help homeless women, over the past two and a half years we have also worked with organisations assisting refugees (including those leaving the Calais Jungle), women escaping domestic abuse, forced marriage and honour violence and school girls from low income backgrounds.

We’re thrilled to partner with Freda, as this allows our donors to donate eco-friendly and organic sanitary towels supplied at cost (and without the tax)! We can’t wait to take on 2018 with Freda and our fellow period poverty warriors to bring an end to this problem, sooner rather than later.