A charity in Leeds has been given the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, the highest award a voluntary group can receive in the UK.
Originally set up to help women and girls in Kenya, Tina Leslie brought her charitable work back home where she created Freedom4Girls UK in 2017 to help tackle period poverty in West Yorkshire.
Leslie was contacted by a teacher from a local school who expressed that female pupils were missing school because of a lack of access to period products and some without basic menstrual health education.
Leslie said: “A teacher from the local school contacted me and said five girls were regularly missing classes because they didn’t have access to period products. Either they didn’t dare ask their mum’s for pads because of a lack of money, or they were using things like toilet paper and socks because they didn’t know what to use despite having a period for over two years.”
The amount of products distributed has quadrupled since the beginning of lockdown in 2020. Before the
pandemic, the charity gave out over 500 packages a month to various schools, organisations, and food banks, with this number rising to over 2000 due to people being furloughed or losing their jobs.
Leslie said: “Those who were financially secure before the pandemic now found themselves not being able to afford things like period products. When 60% of your income has to go on rent and the other 20% of your furlough goes on bills, what does that leave for things like pads or tampons?”
In the UK currently, one in ten girls can’t afford to buy menstrual products, with Leslie saying that it disproportionately affects Black and minority ethnic communities across the West Yorkshire area. A lot of the donations the charity receives are tampons, but 90% of women and girls from minority communities prefer pads, Leslie says.
One of the reasons why people face access difficulties to period products is that they find it embarrassing, says Leslie. People don’t like talking about it or asking for products which means getting pads or tampons difficult. Another reason why is through a language barrier, where women with English as their second language find asking for products they need hard.
Leslie explained: “It has been really busy through the pandemic. One of the things we have been doing is dropping off products to elders in the community who have then either spread the message to women in the area to pick them up off the drive or they have been delivered to them, Covid-19 secure, of course.”
Khaneez Khan, the local coordinator for Near Neighbours, a charity that brings people together in communities that are religiously and ethnically diverse so that they can get to know each other better, nominated the charity for the Queen’s Award.
After multiple interviews and discussions with people helped by the charity, Freedom4Girls UK, was personally chosen by the queen as a recipient of the Voluntary Service award.
The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service aims to recognise outstanding work by volunteer groups to benefit their local communities. It was created in 2002 to celebrate The Queen’s Golden Jubilee.
Representatives of Freedom4Girls will receive the award crystal and certificate from Ed Anderson, Lord-Lieutenant of West Yorkshire later this summer. Furthermore, two volunteers from Freedom4Girls will attend a garden party at Buckingham Palace in May 2022 (depending on restrictions at the time), along with other recipients of this year’s Award.
Leslie said: “Freedom4Girls are delighted and honoured to receive the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service and would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to all our volunteers, supporters and partners, without whom none of our work would be possible!
“As a small, grassroots charity, we hope that the award will present a great opportunity to shine a light on the menstrual health and the serious issue of period poverty, both here in the UK and elsewhere in the world.”
For more information on how to donate period products, time, or money, you can visit Freedom4Girls website here.
