Chelmsford student tackling period poverty in Ukraine
Her organisation has already donated over 1000 pads
A student from Chelmsford is helping to tackle period poverty in Ukraine.
Ella Lambert founded the Pachamama Project, a non-profit organization providing sanitary products to refugees who've fled war-torn countries, whilst at university in Bristol, after learning how to sew reusable pads over lockdown.
So far they've distributed over a thousand pads to people in Ukraine, but she says there's lots more work to do to break the stigma around periods, which is preventing people asking for help: "It makes people's lives a lot more difficult because if you're already suffering from all these other challenges, like where you're going to live or stay, finding food, all of these things, to then not be able to approach organisations and ask for some pads as well?
"That makes people's lives a hell of a lot more difficult."
She's seen the situation first-hand, having just returned from a visit to the Global Expo centre and Ptak Expo centre, both in Warsaw, where thousands of refugees are staying: "I met an NGO who told me about their volunteers at the Metro in Poland.
"They were carrying around packs of pads, as women often do, and these Ukrainian people saw the pads in their bags and were asking if they could take a pad - just one pad!
"None of the women in the station have pads and lots of them are on their periods.
"For someone who doesn't even have somewhere to stay, doesn't have adequate washing facilities to wash their clothes - there's four showers for thousands of people in some of these camps - the added stigma around periods just creates so much more of an unnecessary problem for these people."
Ella has also distributed a further 3000 pads to hospitals in Western Ukraine with the Pads4Refugees charity, and is raising money to provide more, saying people are struggling enough without the added worry of whether they have access to sanitary products: "At least half of the population can relate to what it would be like to have to sleep in a metro, completely relying on the people around you to get you food and shelter, when just a couple of months before that, you were living a normal life.
"On top of that, you're then bleeding through your clothes...we know exactly how much people need them.”
The student is very proud of her work, and plans to continue expanding the Pachamama Project's network of over 1000 volunteers and helping more women in need around the world: "I love the work we do because it provides dignity to people."