Vulva and uterine earrings in the fight against period poverty

New to our range of fair trade jewelry: silver anatomical earrings featuring vulvas and uteruses! All proceeds from these earrings go to BruZelle vzw, an organization fighting against menstrual vulnerability, or period poverty.

What is period poverty?

Hygienic products such as pads and tampons are too great an expense for many people to carry. The lack of menstrual products arouses much embarrassment, causes children to miss school during their periods and adults to cut themselves off from work or social activities. The mental impact of not being able to buy menstrual products is great. The figures in Flanders are also not very encouraging, as a survey conducted by Caritas last year showed.

What does BruZelle do?

BruZelle distributes collection boxes for sanitary napkins in schools, cultural centers, stores and pharmacies. In these, people can then deposit unused, pre-packaged sanitary napkins and cloth storage bags. Furthermore, they also sew storage bags to discreetly drop off sanitary pads to beneficiaries and organize workshops to make their own washable sanitary pads.

Of course, this is only a temporary solution. Therefore, the BruZelle team also actively participates in seminars, debates, conferences, festivals, studies and interviews. They make the issue of menstrual vulnerability more widely known and they exchange ideas and experiences to come up with concrete solutions. BruZelle thus needs a budget, both for its operation and for when the demand for menstrual products exceeds the supply.

Distribution

BruZelle collaborates with partners in the field such as PCSWs, CAWs, day and night shelters for homeless women, food banks, motherhouses, university social grocers and NGOs working in refugee camps and squats.

In addition, BruZelle's team also takes to the streets themselves to hand out the sanitary napkins to persons they meet, and the bags can also be picked up at BruZelle's Brussels office.

Our part in this

All proceeds from the sale of our new anatomical vulva and uterus earrings will go to Bruzelle. Update: as of 26/09/2022, 50% of the proceeds will go to Bruzelle asbl.

How can you still help

• In a collection point near you (the largest supply is in the region around Brussels) you can donate the following:
• prepackaged sanitary napkins
• clean fabric from which pouches are made
• ready-made sachets
• Transform your work/sports club/event into a collection point.
• Make a donation (more info through their website).

More info on how they work can be found on BruZelle's website.
More info on this topic can also be found in this blog post from research project Isala.

Other awareness actions around menstruation

One of our favorite creators, Simone Giertz, is also putting her own playful effort into raising awareness around menstruation. She made a menstrual machine and a menstrual cramping machine: