It’s estimated over 500 million women and girls experience period poverty globally and that it is one of the most significant barriers to girl’s having access to a full and equal education. They say, ‘when you educate a girl, you change the world’, so that’s what we do at The Cova Project. We ensure girls have access to their education with the help of one little device, a menstrual cup, so they can change the world.

Period poverty is defined as a lack of access to safe and hygienic menstrual products and inaccessibility to basic sanitation services or facilities including menstrual hygiene education. Commonly, girls without access to period products miss school for roughly 50 days a year and more often than not, this leads to them dropping out of school entirely.

In Malawi, the annual cost of school fees is equal to the annual cost of sanitary products. So if you’re a parent with a son and a daughter, who is the most economical to have educated? Imagine actually having to make that choice.

The Cova Project eliminates the inequity in this decision by providing menstrual cups free of charge to vulnerable communities in Liberia, Ghana, Uganda, Malawi and Australia. We believe that girls’ should have access to the same opportunities as their male counterparts and we believe that everyone deserves a fair shot.

But why menstrual cups? And what are they? Menstrual cups are small, medical grade silicone period products that can be reusable for up to 10 years. You only need about 4 in your lifetime. You can use them for up to 12 hours, so girls can insert them at home and remove them at home, eliminating the need to change their period products in school WASH facilities which are more than often, unsuitable.

Menstrual cups are commonly used in Australia, US and Europe as an environmentally friendly alternative and a study comparing eight environmental impact indicators – global warming potential, fossil resources, land use, water use, carcinogenic effects, ecotoxicity, acidification and eutrophication – led the BBC to call ‘menstrual cups a clear winner’ compared to all other products. [1]

At The Cova Project, we’ve nicknamed them little silicone scholarships, because you give a cup to a girl at the beginning of high school and it’ll get her all the way to university. Magic.

To date, The Cova Project has distributed 38,000 menstrual cups across six countries. 4 out of 5 girls who receive the cup from us use it each month and say it improves their confidence. In Liberia, of the girls using the cup, 9 out of 10 girls who were previously missing school, no longer miss school. It changes the trajectory of people’s lives.

We work in refugee settlements, slum communities and rural schools. Nothing about what we do is easy but if we want to live in a world where girls have equal rights and opportunities, then it starts with giving them the tools to participate.

It’s one little medical device, it costs $7, it provides ten years of menstrual health solutions and it works. The communities we’ve worked in for the last seven years, they’re different. The girls speak their minds. They’re educated. They’re empowered. They know how to advocate for themselves and as educated and employed women, they will advocate and provide for the generations to come.

It’s not just a cup. It’s not just a donation. It’s a ripple of change, reaching generations. And it all starts here.

If you’re interested in supporting The Cova Project we are looking for corporate & philanthropic partners to help us change thousands of girls’ lives. If you’d like to partner or learn more, contact Geena at gdunne@thecovaproject.com or donate today at https://www.thecovaproject.com/donate-today