There are over 100,000 Australian women and teenage girls who every month go without female sanitary products because they cannot afford them, due to homelessness, poverty and domestic violence situations. The Share the Dignity campaigns aimed to ensure everyone is afforded the dignity so many of us take for granted, because no woman should suffer the indignity of choosing between eating or buying sanitary products.

Share the Dignity and Retail First Shopping Centres are hoping to make a real, on-the-ground difference with the upcoming August Dignity donation drive, with donation points in all 19 Retail First shopping centres throughout South East Queensland.  

Instigated and organised by charity organisation Share the Dignity, the initiative seeks to provide the basic essentials for women and girls in crisis by making a call out for tampons, pads and personal hygiene products to distribute to women nationwide.  

Dignity founder Rochelle Courtenay said the organisation, through this upcoming donation drive, helps in some small way to alleviate the undignified situations that thousands of women across the country endure.

“So many women every month have to forfeit sanitary products because they cannot afford them. Many mothers must choose between buying tampons and feeding their children. Girls miss out on school simply because families cannot afford to buy the basics of necessities,” stressed Courtenay.

“When they cannot have access to the essential feminine products, women become extremely resourceful… by using wadded up newspaper, or toilet paper, or socks. This should not be happening.”

Courtenay said she was thrilled to have Retail First shopping centres on board to provide donation points across South East Queensland and to help create further awareness of the need to restore dignity for women and girls in crisis.

“The donation drive has an overall target of 200,000 packets of tampons and pads.  This is a huge number and so the more awareness and opportunities for consumers to donate, the more women and girls we will be able to assist.  We are excited to have the shopping centre group involved,”  Courtenay said.

Retail First Head of Marketing, Bec Gascoigne said the upcoming August donation drive was a wonderful opportunity for everyday shoppers to help a local woman or teenaged girl in need.

“Something as simple and inexpensive as a packet of tampons will make a great difference to a young Queensland woman in need next month,” Gascoigne said.

“Rochelle’s stories about women and girls in crisis touched our hearts and we shed tears hearing of young girls not going to school while they have their period.   We knew we had to be involved in this very worthy donation drive.”

Pink collection boxes will be located throughout Retail First shopping centres across South East Queensland.