Our Story so far

Period Friendly Places is a registered charity aiming to create towns and cities where nobody experiences period poverty and there is dignity for all.

 

Bristol has pledged to take a leading role in eradicating period poverty by making period products available to all who need them, while also combating outdated societal attitudes to menstruation. The Period Friendly Places vision is to eradicate period poverty and to be a city of period dignity, in which nobody is held back in life or stigmatised against simply for having a period.

 

Period Friendly Places has been on an exciting journey since early 2019. In January 2019, a Period Poverty summit was held in Bristol’s City Hall, which brought together 100 key figures from within the city and beyond to grapple with the first steps on how to make Bristol a city free of period poverty and period stigma, with representatives from organisations travelling from as far as Edinburgh to contribute to the event.

 

Led at that time by Cllr Helen Godwin, Cabinet Lead for Women, Children and Families, and Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol, the first step was to establish a City wide Donation and Distribution Network.​ As things slowed down everywhere in 2020 due to the pandemic, we couldn’t make as much progress with the distribution network as hoped.

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In 2023/24 we introduced new trustees and life into the charity’s work, with new funding, a new brand and efforts to refresh and expand our network of distribution centres and corporate partners.

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As at the end of 2024 we:

• Provide free period products in 26 community venues across Bristol

• Work with 3 corporate partners who donate products and volunteer to help us with the distribution.

• Have 13 donation bins in public locations (including supermarkets, community centres, activity and religious venues) and our corporate partners’ offices.

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While we’re meeting current demand for the existing venues, we have a growing waiting list of community venues who have asked for our help. We’ll need more donations and funding to allow us to continue strengthening and growing our network to help more people.

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In 2025 we’ll be broadening our network, with more corporate partners, strengthening our distribution network, and supporting more people in need through more community venues.

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On the education front, we’re also working to understand what educational resources we previously delivered can be repurposed in future. By engaging with the council and schools we’ll gather feedback to help inform what new (or repurposed) resources would be most useful to deliver today. 

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