Sewing to fight period poverty ⏲️ 6 Minute English

Hello. This is 6 Minute

English from BBC Learning English.

I'm Georgie. And I'm Beth. Menstruation is an issue

that is not often talked about, yet every month

it affects billions of women around the world. Menstruation, or periods

are a natural process that typically happen once a month

when women and girls bleed from their vagina

for a few days as part of the reproductive cycle.

When this happens,

women need special products like sanitary pads or tampons

to manage the flow of blood and go about their day-to-day life.

Unfortunately, over 500 million people around the world

either don't have access to these products or can't afford to buy them,

and this is called period poverty.

Period poverty has serious consequences for example,

girls on their periods not going to school affects their education,

and women who can't work during their period have less income.

What's more, it can cause health problems because,

without sanitary products, it's easy to get infections.

In this programme, we'll be learning about one project

fighting period

poverty affecting thousands of women refugees and of course,

we'll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well.

But first, Georgie,

I have a question for you.

Periods affect girls and women of reproductive age.

That's roughly half the female population or 26%

of the global population.

But how many people

is that? Is it a) 2.1 billion people b)

2.3 billion people or c) 2.5 billion people.

I'll guess it's about 2.1 billion people.

OK, Georgie.

I will reveal the answer at the end of the programme.

Ella Lambert was a student at Bristol University

when she started the Pachamama project in 2020,

during the first Covid

lockdown. She'd heard about period poverty and decided to put her

lockdown time to good use by making sanitary pads, pieces

of soft material used to absorb menstrual blood.

Here's Ella explaining how her project got started to BBC

World Service Programme,

'People Fixing the World'.

So, I borrowed a sewing machine from a friend,

I learnt how to sew on YouTube,

and then I just started making pads. And even now to this day,

I can't sew anything else, only pads.

Ella started making reusable sanitary pads which aren't a new thing.

They're made from absorbent fabrics such as fleece and cotton sheets

which means that they can be used over and over again after they are washed

unlike disposable pads.

Ella spent lockdown

learning how to sew,

how to join pieces of material by hand using a needle and thread

or with a sewing machine. In fact,

Ella was so focused on sewing sanitary pads she didn't make anything else,

and to this day pads are the only thing she knows how to sew. Ella

uses the phrase 'to this day' to say: up to and including the present moment.

Sanitary pads aren't easy to make. The outer layer has to be soft

because it touches the skin,

but they also need to be absorbent able to soak up liquids like blood

and hold them. What's more,

Ella designed her pads to be washed and used again,

unlike most sanitary pads bought in shops

which are disposable, designed to be thrown away after they have been used.

Ella's network of volunteers sewing reusable sanitary pads grew, and to date

the Pachamama Project has donated tens of thousands of period products

to refugees fleeing conflict in Syria, Turkey and Lebanon as well as

women here in the UK.

Plus, the project is helping in other ways too.

Despite affecting so many people, and being necessary for life itself,

many cultures consider menstruation unclean or shameful,

not a topic of polite conversation.

But Ella thinks her project is giving refugees

the confidence to talk about periods as she told

BBC World Service's 'People Fixing the World'.

I have seen such major change in such a short, short period

of time like the women, originally,

who were distributing the pads were barely even speak about it.

And we had it behind the curtain,

And now they'll chat away about the pads with their male colleagues,

anyone that comes into the shop. Before,

most women refugees would barely talk about menstruation,

they would only just, scarcely talk about it.

But now they're happily chatting away,

passing the time talking to other women, and even to male colleagues.

I think it's time I reveal the answer to my question - as a number,

how many women make up the 26% of the world's population

who menstruate.

I said it was 2.1

billion people. Which was... the correct answer.

OK, let's recap the vocabulary

we've learned in this programme, starting

with the verb 'to sew', to join material together using a needle and thread,

either by hand or with a sewing machine.

The phrase 'to this day' means 'up to and including the present moment'.

The adjective 'absorbent' means able to soak up and hold liquid

and the adjective 'disposable' means designed to be thrown away

after use. If you barely do something,

you only just do it by the smallest amount.

And finally, to 'chat away' means to pass the time by talking a lot

with someone. Once again,

our six minutes are up.

We hope you'll join us again next time here at 6 Minute.

English. Bye for now.

Bye.