This article was originally published inSouth Carolina Daily Gazette.
Columbia - in the Tampon -Gangpad in a CFS in rural areas Clarendon County Las a sign "This item is in high demand" and limited purchase for two boxes a day. Customer.
It was this meeting of "Poverty period" defined as a lack of access to menstrual products and education that led to four students from the University of South Carolina to transform their ideas from the competition from a student in reality.
Four students who pursue medical and scientific degrees - Aastha Arora, Jiya Desai, Anusha Ghosh and Thrisha Mote - were winners of 2023Pay ahead of competitionSponsored by the electrical cooperatives of South Carolina and Students teams ask to come up with solutions for problems bullying rural areas in the state.
"We all grew up with this stigma about menstruation," said Mote, an emerging senior from Chattanooga, Tennessee, who studied psychology, SC Daily Gazette recently told.From rural areas."
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In the United States, two of the five women fight to buy menstruation due to a lack of income.Women's rights and empowerment -network.And federal supermarkets, which used to be known as food vouchers, cannot be used to buy pillows and tampons.
Until Monday, South Carolina was also one of the 21 states to tax products.The average box of 32 tampons in South Carolina sells for $ 10.99.Almost $ 1.
In rural areas, such as Clarendon County, residents often have to take longer distances to the nearest store to buy what they need.
The four honorary students, who met in the medical -related brotherhood Phi Delta Epsilon, are also members of the national group of the USC interest groups consisting of students interested in working in the countryside.school age.
In a speech with other female students about their experiences, they heard about a woman about how students would ask the school nurse to toilet paper to use while they were in their period because they had no access to pillows.
"This kind of opened our eyes for a kind of cycle of poverty that takes place in areas like this, where they learn these from their parents," said Desai van Fort Mill, with the medical school in the fall.
Their research into the question and a proposal to form a non-profit to donate menstrual products to school districts in the state, each of the women earned a cash price of $ 5,000 of the electric cooperatives last year.
It could have ended there, but the group decided to push their idea further.
"We felt a bit unfulfilled to just stop there," said Arora, a rising junior from Charlotte, who studied biology.
They formed a student group from USC called No Period Left.Cirka 175 students registered to participate.
"We would not only investigate this problem. We wanted to actively try to fight it," added Ghosh from Greenville, who also starts with medical school in the fall.
The four women participated in their prize money from the competition and started buying pillows and tampons.
The group then organized events to pack the supplies that are given to women's shelters and central and colleges, as well as eating food for USC students and in ladies are in the library, the student center and other high traffic buildings at the university campus.
At the Saluda Middle School they held a seminar to teach the girls around the periods.
No more period, who participated in the series of various such organizations in the entire state to combat poverty: Revolution rode in Columbia, period Pixies in Lowcountry and period project with headquarters in Greenville.
Also, setting up relationships with these groups did not return any period to participate in legal efforts about the question.
Legislators, mostly female, have tried for five yearsRemove the VAT taxesPaid on menstrual products.According to the state experts from the State, these items generate an annual estimate of $ 7 million in state and local VAT taxes.
OfRecent two -piece effortsGot unanimous approval in the house last year.Small political maneuverFrom senator Margie Bright Matthews, D-Walterboro, who held tax benefits at Golf Club memberships to get this vote on the Senate floor.
The Henry McMaster government signed the legislation on Monday.
A spokesperson for the Staatsministerie van Revenue said that the agency is working on a plan and will "inform retailers" as soon as possible "about the necessary adjustments.
No period left was one of different groups that wrote letters and spoke during the hearings of the regulations in favor of the proposal..
"We can continue to donate to different schools and hiding places for women," said Desai."We try to do exactly the best with what we can do, but it would really touch if the root problem."
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