March 2020 saw everyone thrown into a whole new world and Covid-19 was flooding the headlines and so too was the sudden urge to clear the shelves of toilet rolls. At ICNI, we very quickly noticed that sanitary products were clearing the shelves too.
Therefore, we applied for the amazing opportunity from Tesco ‘Bags of Help – Covid-19 communities fund’ and were successful and used the funding to buy sanitary products. We created sanitary packs containing varied sizes of sanitary towels, tampons and panty liners and distributed them to learning disability and autism groups throughout Northern Ireland.
This is an area of health that is rarely talked about and during lockdown when many people were unable to leave their homes ICNI delivered over 700 packs of sanitary products to regional learning disability days centres, community groups, schools, supported living, and autism organisations for them to distribute to their members.
As soon as we put the word out that the packs were available, the demand was incredible and we received fantastic feedback.
‘These are absolutely amazing for our Girls and Autism Project and we are so grateful to secure some for the girls’ (Manager, Autism NI)
‘The packs have been a wonderful addition to our nurture room in school, thank-you so much’ (SEN teacher)
‘We are so grateful for these. There is a lot of period poverty, especially since lockdown and I know these packs will go a long way to help people out’ (Day Opportunities Manager)
‘These packs are a great idea and will benefit a number of our women, thank-you’ (Shared Living Manager)
To find out about our Just Ask programme click here.
