We had Rebecca from Freedom Cups, an organisation in Singapore, come to talk to us about their work. It was so interesting to hear about the what they do and how they have impacted the various communities across Asia and other parts of the world with their sustainable menstrual cups. I think that it’s such a good movement that they are trying to promote with the benefits being not only economically sustainable, but also environmentally (I outline what they do in the email below) I also think their mission to abolish period poverty is so relevant to GEP and our possible collaboration in the future could be very successful and beneficial to our school community, our service partners and Singapore as a whole. Ms. Wilson suggested I write an email to Mr.Alchin to propose the idea of selling the cups at the school shop and the potential opportunity to extend the Freedom Cups collaboration to other areas of our service initiatives.
I have included the email I wrote below, as well as Mr.Alchin’s response:
“Dear Mr. Alchin,
I am from the focus group Generation.Education.Period (G.E.P). Our group has 3 main goals:
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To promote the use of sustainable sanitary protection for girls and women here in Singapore and also in LEDC’s
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To advocate for the end to period shaming that occurs in many LEDC’s
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To support the right of girls in LEDC’s to have access to sanitary protection so that they do not miss out of schooling due to having their period
We recently had a local Singaporean business called Freedom Cups in to talk with our Focus Group. Students and teachers from Daraja GC also attended the session. Freedom Cups have a similar mission to that of G.E.P and we were very excited to learn about the great work that they are doing. They sell (FDA approved) sustainable silicon menstrual cups here in Singapore, and for every cup they sold, they give one to a girl/woman in a less fortunate community. Rebecca from Freedom Cups educated us on the benefits and impacts that a menstrual cups have: one cup lasts around 10 years and therefore reduces the amount of waste that is created from standard plastic sanitary products. The cups are also overall more safe to use due to the lack of chemicals that could potentially infect the body after extensive periods of time.
We have been considering the idea of collaborating with Freedom Cups due to the several parallels between our focus group and the organization. After a discussion with Ms Wilson (our teacher leader), we met with Mr. Hannah to discuss the idea of selling Freedom Cups in the school shop here at East. We feel that there would be real interest in the cups with female students, teachers, mothers, especially if G.E.P actively promoted the cups. Mr. Hannah thinks that our idea is a really good one and advised us that we should tell you about our idea in case you (and other members of leadership) need to consider it. If all goes well we aim to create interest at Dover to also introduce Freedom Cups in their shop. We also have ideas such as partnering with GC’s, working with Project Week groups, and the boarding house to ensure that our female scholars have access to the cups. But the first step is getting the cups in the school shop.
We really think that forming a relationship with Freedom Cups could result in numerous benefits not only for our own community, but with the opportunity, the communities that we work with internationally.
Please let us know if you would like to meet members of G.E.P to discuss the idea further.
Thank you,
Isabella Griggs (Gr11) on behalf of Generation.Education. Period”
Mr.Alchin’s reply:
“This is great, thank you!
