Period poverty is a global sanitation issue affecting boys and girls around the world explained by Global Citizen. According to UNICEF, 2.3 billion people worldwide lack basic sanitation services, and only 27 percent of individuals in poor countries have adequate handwashing facilities at home. People who have infected COVID-19 and are in a combat situation may have limited access to menstruation products and running water. Period poverty is a social and political issue, as well as an economic one. Period poverty denotes the challenge that many low-income women and girls endure when trying to afford period products. The word also refers to the increasing economic vulnerability that women and girls face as a result of the financial burden created by menstruation supplies. These include not only menstruation pads and tampons, but also associated costs such as pain medicine. Period poverty is not just a failure of constitutional guarantees, but it is also a significant human rights concern. The issue connects with the UN Sustainable Development Goals 4, 5, and 6, which aim to ensure quality education, gender equality, and access to safe drinking water and sanitation. Every day, almost 1.9 million people menstruate. The world must act to end period poverty. Promoting menstrual equity is key to supporting women and young girls. To address this issue, we developed "Period Poverty Tracker", a web-based application that can be used as a tracker to help needy people locate donors near them and contact donors. So that a donor can simply assist a needy person who is in need of a sanitary kit. We invite individuals to donate sanitary products and soaps.
In this app, there are two end users. One is a needy person who is experiencing period poverty, and the other is a donor who is willing to assist the needy by donating tampons, sanitary kits, soaps, and other items.
- Go to Menses - Period Poverty Tracker
- Login/Signup
- Search donor in map near your area
- Click on location symbol to receive information about them
- Contact them and ask for assistance.
It is estimated that 1.9 million individuals, or about a quarter of the world's population, menstruate. Of the people who mesturate, at lease 500 million experince period poverty every month. Period poverty is described as a lack of access to menstrual hygiene tools and knowledge, such as sanitary products, washing facilities, and waste management. Although period poverty is a global issue, people in low-income nations are disproportionately affected. The social stigma associated with menstruation has also played a significant part in the rise of period poverty. So to reduce the period poverty, we have created this application which will provide a platform for needy to find donor and their contact information easily. In addition, the needy locate someone who can assist them. It will be easier for them to find others in their neighbourhood who can assist them.
- Backend - Firebase
- Frontend - HTML/CSS, Bootstrap 5, SCSS
- Tools used - VS code, Git/Github, Figma, Firestore Database
- Database - Firestore
- Google Technology - Google map API, Firebase
Donations can help reduce period poverty, but there are other things we can do, such as spreading awareness, counselling women to teach them about the menstruation cycle, what to do and what not to do during their periods, and so on.
- We intend to include a Google Meet function in this application so that if an NGO organises an event to raise awareness, it can reach a larger and larger audience.
- We also wish to provide spaces (basically a chat box for all members of that group) to different organizations so that anyone can join any space that meets his or her needs and engage with other people and specialists while discussing their issues.
- Including a blog part where people may share their stories and inspire others, as well as provide health advice in their articles.
- In addition, we intend to add a flip card that provides the user with random health tips.
- We want to show youngsters a process by visualising things and educate them about periods in a fun way to make them aware. So we'd like to leverage webVR technology to construct a VR environment and teach them about the menstruation cycle.
- We intend to include global chat in this application so that users may quickly get answers to their questions and engage with others, globally.