Who should learn about periods in school? Everyone, with the help of these UNB students

In a room full of children at a school in New Brunswick, a child raises their hand and asks a question: "Why do I need to be here?"

The topic of the day is menstruation. Students from the University of New Brunswick's Menstrual Health Society are giving a presentation about periods, but the student who raised their hand doesn't ever expect to have one.

For Kate Palmer and Caroline Stephen, co-founders of the menstrual society, the traditional separation of girls from boys to learn about menstruation is part of what causes period stigma. 

Volunteers from the society have been travelling to schools in the Fredericton area to teach middle school and high school students about periods and to distribute free period products. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, said Palmer and Stephen. So many schools want to book the presentations that the society jokes it's going on tour.

The idea was to build a presentation based on content that Palmer and Stephen felt was lacking from their own health classes when they were younger.

"I'm sure you remember that the health classes in public schools are very biological and very basic in nature, like OK, here's a tampon, here's the anatomy of the body. That's kind of it," said Palmer, a third-year psychology student.

There was no discussion of the different kinds of period products, nor was there any talk about period stigma and period poverty, Palmer added. For this last topic, the menstrual society volunteers talk with youth about what kinds of costs come with having a period, but also how people, including non-menstruators, can help combat period poverty. 

That's the idea the menstrual society is trying to impart, or the answer to the student's question — the responsibility to reduce period stigma and period poverty doesn't lie solely with people who menstruate.

The kids seem to get it, too.

Palmer and Stephen said the presentations are framed more as conversations, and students are free to ask any questions they'd like. Throw in fun facts — did you know scientists used to think period blood was poisonous? — and an enticing Kahoot game to win prizes, and engagement with the sessions is very high. 

"There's been a lot of boys that have been winning, too. It's not just like, oh, the girls know everything, and the boys weren't paying attention," Stephen said.

At one school, Palmer said students were "thrilled" to receive tampons and pads from the society, openly carrying them around.

"I can't imagine myself in middle school flaunting around a pad or a tampon," she said. "You hide it in your hand, right? So I think that was really cool."

The society's work doesn't stop with middle schools and high schools. It was born of a problem with access on the UNB Fredericton campus.

Stephen, who's a sixth-year mechanical engineering student, was studying at the library when she got her period. She looked around the library for a pad or a tampon, even asked the librarians, but there was nothing available, and she had to go to the campus pharmacy to buy some. 

"That experience kind of got my wheels turning," Stephen said. "Why hasn't something been done about this?"

Stephen reached out to Palmer, someone she'd gone to high school with in Rothesay and knew to be a good student leader. Palmer agreed to help get the society off the ground, even getting herself elected as a woman's representative on the school's student union to give the society more leverage. 

Many letters and meetings and funding requests later, the society was no longer just an idea. Today, with more than 30 volunteers, the UNB Menstrual Health Society has more than 15 free product dispensers on campus and has distributed more than 7,200 free pads and tampons.

In its first year, the society has grown to include marketing, social media, a website, and a number of different volunteer coordinators who work in sustainability and community outreach.

Eventually, the society hopes to deliver its presentations to elementary school students, as well as expand to UNB's Saint John campus.