An­oth­er ma­jor step to­wards end­ing pe­ri­od pover­ty in this coun­try was tak­en with the size­able do­na­tion of 135,000 fem­i­nine hy­giene prod­ucts to sec­ondary schools in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and to non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion Kids In Need of Di­rec­tion (KIND), by Al­ways®.

Al­ways® be­gan its #End­Pe­ri­od­Pover­ty cam­paign in March 2020, just as the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic was gain­ing ground in the re­gion.  The cam­paign was de­signed to help in­crease ac­cess to fem­i­nine hy­giene prod­ucts for girls in chal­leng­ing eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances so they can stay con­fi­dent and stay in school.

How­ev­er, the pan­dem­ic halt­ed the cam­paign in T&T for a while, as schools were closed in or­der to pre­vent fur­ther coro­n­avirus in­fec­tions.

The dis­tri­b­u­tion re­sumed re­cent­ly.  This week, Al­stons Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (AM­CO)—the lo­cal dis­trib­u­tor for Al­ways®—man­aged to suc­cess­ful­ly com­plete dis­tri­b­u­tion of the much need­ed fem­i­nine sup­plies, as part of its COVID-19 re­lief ef­forts.

Resh­ma Geawan, P&G (Proc­ter & Gam­ble) Busi­ness Unit Head at AM­CO, said the com­pa­ny was more than hap­py to as­sist with the cam­paign dis­tri­b­u­tion and pledged to con­tin­ue to as­sist where nec­es­sary.

“We know that this has been a dif­fi­cult year for every­one, which is why we re­main com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing pe­ri­od prod­ucts to our girls and those in need. Pe­ri­od pover­ty is not a new phe­nom­e­non and we promise to play our part in help­ing to cir­cum­vent pe­ri­od pover­ty,” she said.

For the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year, Al­ways® part­nered with KIND to dis­trib­ute pe­ri­od prod­ucts in an even more mean­ing­ful way name­ly, the do­na­tion of an in­creased to­tal of 115,000 pads to five sec­ondary schools—four in Trinidad and one in To­ba­go—en­sur­ing that each fe­male stu­dent re­ceived Al­ways® fem­i­nine prod­ucts to last an en­tire school year.

The schools were iden­ti­fied by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and in­clud­ed Rio Claro East Sec­ondary, Cunu­pia Sec­ondary, To­co Sec­ondary, Suc­cess Laven­tille Sec­ondary and Rox­bor­ough Sec­ondary School.

Al­so rec­og­niz­ing the need to pro­vide con­tin­u­ous sup­port to com­mu­ni­ties, Al­ways® once again part­nered with KIND to help de­liv­er a to­tal of 20,000 pads to as­sist some fam­i­lies af­fect­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.