In Romania, there are 4,8 million people who menstruate and 702,820 of them are teenage girls aged 12-18. In our country, adolescent girls are an even more vulnerable category in terms of poverty and social exclusion: according to Eurostat data, 440,000 adolescent girls were at risk of poverty and social exclusion in 2019.

At Iele-Sânziene Association, we started working in 2020 on various projects in the context of menstrual education. We organized workshops with over 200 teenagers, created a charity shop with ethically manufactured reusable pads, opened the topic of menstruation online, started a research because there is no data on menstrual education and hygiene, distributed eco-friendly menstrual products to vulnerable girls and women, and most recently, we launched a petition for the introduction of free menstrual products in schools that was signed by over 17,000 people.