Students lead the way on period equity

Students in need of period products at Howick College can wander down the hallway to the school's own period product office, led and run by its very own students, and painted in the colours of women’s suffrage – purple, green and cream.

“It changed my life. My mum is a single mum, and it really helped her budget. It was really accessible to me. The people were kind. It inspired me to volunteer shifts there myself,” shares Angela, a Year 12 student at Howick.

Even before the Ikura programme began delivering free period products to young people, Howick College students were concerned about period poverty in New Zealand.

A group of social studies ākonga had met with several MPs from the health subcommittee at the school to discuss period poverty, how it was affecting young people, and the solution: free period products in schools.

When the Ikura programme began in June 2021, those students were thrilled.

Student-led from the start

Anna Marsick, senior academic dean at Howick College, has helped her students weave Ikura into the daily motion of school life. With schools across New Zealand able to make the programme work fortheir environments, Anna says they have experimented to find out the best dispensary solution.

Initially, they started with physical dispensers in bathrooms. But they did not fit the products.

“With 1,200 female students in our 2,400-populated school, we couldn’t just put a big box of tampons in the toilets and say, ‘help yourself’,” explains Anna. The caretaker also acknowledged that they did not want toilets to be blocked.

“So over time, we thought about how we could address this,” says Anna.

Howick’s Hauora Council, its student wellbeing leadership council, stepped up to the task, joining with the Z Club, a student branch of Zonta, an international women’s empowerment organisation run at the school.

“Our system started down a line of women empowering women, with students working for others to ensure that they could all access these products,” says Anna. “Our students have taken on the running of the Ikura programme in our school.”

The period product office at Howick College.

Creating a welcoming space

The group was given all the products and put in charge of refilling bathrooms and boxes to ensure the supplies are always stocked and available.

That’s when they decided to create their own period product office.

Cleaning, decorating and painting an unused office space at the school, the student team took charge.

Open at every interval and at lunchtime, and staffed by the Zonta girls, Howick College students can get their period products from other students.

There’s a female empowerment board hanging on the wall, with images of inspiring women that the students swap out. Currently, Beyoncé, Kate Sheppard, Malala Yousafzai and the American women’s ice hockey team, who won gold at the Olympics, look proudly over the students.

“As a huge multicultural Auckland school, we have so many cultural issues with embarrassment and shame when it comes to menstruation,” says Anna. “In trying to overcome all those barriers to shyness, we wanted to create a space as gentle, accessible and friendly as possible.”

Before Ikura was offered, some students would stay at home due to embarrassment and period poverty. Now, students can order whatever they need; it is not just for emergency situations.

“Everybody is different. You ask for what you want, no questions are asked,” says Anna.

Innovation driven by students

In its fourth year, the students who originally opened the period product office are now senior students with roles on the school's leadership councils. Another group of Year 10 and 11 students have taken charge of the office.

“It's been amazing to see the growth to the really nice space it is now. It's amazing to see the impact it has on our girls,” shares Florence, a Year 13 student leader and period product office founder.

Howick has since introduced an online ordering system. Using a simple Google Form accessed by a QR code, students can view which products are available and request how many of each they would like.

The students in the period product office then put together their order, sending an email to the student when it’s ready for collection.

“We figured if students could see it on their phone and order instantly, we would get more orders and more students taking up the programme,” says Anna.

Her role now is to send out a few emails to students, making sure they know where to find the Google Form and order the products they need provided through the Ministry of Education’s Ikura Programme.

It is student-led all the way

“The entire rest of the process, all of the day-to-day management, the rostering, the opening up and managing of orders, the getting products to the students is done by them,” says Anna.

Howick College senior academic dean Anna Marsick and student.

Products are always offered and stored in the library, the student office and the health centre, so students will never be caught off guard. The students ensure those locations are always topped up with products.

“We’ve seen a direct benefit of this programme,” says acting principal Cheri Gallagher. “We’ve got students coming to school now who would’ve stayed home when they got their period.”

With more than 1,200 students at the intermediate, Cheri says they communicate often with whānau about the programme.

“Students are relieved to know they can lessen the financial burden on their parents, when maybe they have to decide between sanitary products and putting kai on the table,” she says.

Assemblies are held for the students, with male teachers present, so students know they can talk openly about their periods with anyone. It doesn’t have to be a secret.

“I know where to go if I need anything, so I never have to worry,” shared one student.

Supporting students across Aotearoa

Rotorua Girls' High School has also signed up to Ikura. They have baskets of products available to all ākonga in their wellness centre and at the hostel.

“It has taken the fear away from ākonga needing sanitary products,” deputy principal Raewyn Krammer says of the programme. “It allows us to take financial stress away from parents as we have several families struggling.”

Tauranga Intermediate has a washing machine in its youth mentor space for emergencies. Students are provided with a change of clothes in the meantime, with their own clothes washed and dried before they head home.

Sanitary products are available across the school: in dispensers in the wellness centre, the bilingual whare, classrooms and unisex toilets. Students can take extras home to cover school holidays. Teachers all have spares on hand, too.

Breaking down stigma

“The more women talk openly about menstruation, the less it’s a joke,” believes Anna. “And the more we publicise our Ikura programme, the better response we get.

It’s all from the students empowering each other to lead it, empowering women to see their bodies are not a barrier to their education and chasing their dreams."