Welcome to In The Spotlight

Do you have an amazing business to showcase, or an incredible story to tell?

This month emmaheaven.com is shining the spotlight on...

Molly Fenton ~ Love Your Period Campaign

My name is Molly Fenton and I am a 17-year-old Welsh school pupil who, in March 2019, founded the ‘Love Your Period Campaign’, which I run with my younger sister, Tilly.

I am currently doing my A-levels in music, biology, history and Welsh baccalaureate.

The campaign was originally set up to eradicate period poverty and stigma for Welsh school pupils, but today we’ve extended it to ending period poverty and plastic in Wales, and stigma worldwide.

It was after many months off school due to illness and reading about Amika George (who started the FreePeriod campaign in England), that I realized I needed to make use of the spare time I had to keep my mind active.

On my return to school, I used the topics as my speech in a debating competition, where the title was "If we eradicate period stigma, can we more effectively remove period poverty?”

It was clear how everyone listening to my speech was affected by my speech, and not long after I started an Instagram page called @loveyourperiod - today, we are nearing 5,000 followers on Instagram alone.

So far we have:

• Helped implement the Welsh Government’s Period Dignity Scheme, and sit on the Period Roundtable with Jane Hutt, Member of the Senedd (MS).
• Held a period product collection in my community, collecting hundreds of packs of products that were donated to homeless charities and shelters, women’s support and to BloodyGoodPeriod collecting for refugees and asylum seekers.
• Created our own confidential LGBTQIA+ support system that is used by many. Anyone can contact the Instagram page at any time to receive support around menstruation.
• Visited various primary schools across South Wales to teach 'Menstruation Education’ to pupils aged 9-11.
• Held assemblies to 1,600 pupils in my own school, before the period dignity scheme was in place and I personally collected products for the school.
• Started, and still running, a petition to ask it to be made a legal requirement for ingredients to be put on period products Change.Org Petition: Make Period Product Manufacturers Put Ingredients on Packaging
• Created a safe space for everyone to talk and ask about periods.

So what does the future hold?

No matter where life takes me, I will be running this campaign.

Yes, our next goal is to get these ingredients on product packaging, but our ultimate goal will always be to live in a world where periods are accepted for the natural bodily function that they are.

In return, I strongly believe that the decline in period stigma will mean that period poverty can be more easily solved.

People need to continue to stand up and speak out. If I didn't last year then who would have?

My philosophy is ‘stand up for what you believe in’. I always have and I always will. No matter how big or small, everyone can make a difference in this world.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Instagram: @loveyourperiod
Twitter: @loveyourperiod1
Facebook: Love Your Period Campaign
TikTok: @loveyourperiod