The Moxico province of Angola is a fifth of the landmass of Angola and has a population of over 800,000 people and is where the civil war ended in 2002. The remote rural province capital of Luena is 1,314km from the Angolan capital of Luanda and has a population of over 90,000. The province remains heavily contaminated with explosive remnants of war, resulting in making the daily activities of water collection and farming dangerous, limiting housing, food production, and infrastructure. Over 54% of the population of Moxico lives on less than $12 a month (World Bank, 2020), resulting in women and girls using leaves, ash, sand, old rags, and paper or going without a menstrual product. Days For Girls UK aims to shatter the stigma of menstruation by developing period-positive pathways and addressing period inequality. Days for Girls UK has supplied over 750 washable menstrual kits to women and girls, enabling them to manage their periods with dignity. Menstrual health and hygiene are critical factors in improving education and livelihood outcomes for menstruators. Working with our Angolan partner the Associaçao National de Ajuda Humanitaria Angola (ANAH Angola), we have delivered menstrual health sessions, trained local women to deliver our menstrual health and hygiene training, and will be setting up a sewing workshop in Luena this year. This presentation will focus on the reasons for addressing the issues, the outcomes, the lessons learned, and how addressing period inequality empowers girls and women economically, socially, and holistically. 

Delyth Pannett is the United Kingdom Country Coordinator for the UK-registered charity Days for Girls UK.  Her role involves the coordination of the UK volunteer teams, overseeing the UK and global distributions of reusable menstrual kits, and is responsible for the development of the UK advocacy and education strategy. She is a former education consultant, working in the education and humanitarian sector for over 15 years and holds a BSc (Hons) in Genetics, a PGCE (Biology), and is a Member of the Royal Society of Biology.