Irina is the President and Co-Founder of Pe Stop, a Romanian organisation working to fight period poverty since 2018. The organisation combines access to menstrual care products with education and advocacy for systemic change. We spoke with Irina about Pe Stop’s work, the importance of menstrual health education and her advice for others looking to turn an idea into action.
Dear Irina, could you briefly introduce yourself and tell us what Pe Stop is all about? What inspired you to start the organisation?
Pe Stop’s mission is to fight period poverty in Romania in a systemic manner – providing period care products to those who need and cannot afford them, organising classes about menstrual care and healthy relationships, as well as advocating for laws that make period care more affordable across the nation.
I am the organisation’s President and Co-Founder and I was inspired by a short film about a woman who was offering menstrual care products to homeless women in her small US town. After a little bit of research, I found out that at that moment there was no other organisation providing this kind of support on a monthly basis. During the first few months on the field, all of us in the team realised that the need was far greater than expected.
Pe Stop combines the distribution of period care products with educational workshops. Why is this combination so important?
Information is a far more sustainable thing to offer, if you have the possibility. Of course, products are absolutely necessary and appreciated, but that means that the beneficiaries rely on us to provide them. In times of economic hardship, we might not be able to offer them as needed. Information, however, is something that nobody can take away from you, once you have learned it.
Is there a personal story that showed you the real impact of your work? And how do you challenge the stigma surrounding menstruation?
One of our first beneficiaries, when asked how she coped with her period before meeting us, said that “it was easier when the kids were little”. We did not understand and asked a follow-up question, and she explained: when the kids were younger, they would quickly grow out of their clothes and she would cut up their old clothes and use them as makeshift period pads. This practice, we found out, is unbelievably common in extremely poor communities in Romania.
We also have quite a few stories about girls being more confident to go to school without fear of staining themselves, now that they had reliable period products on a monthly basis.
The answer regarding the stigma is really simple – by talking openly about menstruation! Our own behaviour models the behaviour of those around us. So whether we are in a Parliament session or a menstrual education class, we just discuss it as the perfectly normal topic that it is.
You participated in NGO Academy’s Social Innovation and Management Programme. How did the programme and the exchange with other NGO leaders contribute to your work?
My participation in SIMPro was crucial in developing the organisation’s strategy for the long run. The information I learned, working on the final project and the discussions with other participants were very useful in helping me see the bigger picture and recognise what was needed in order for our organisation to evolve.
The programme and the exchange with other NGO leaders was extremely important! It helped me realise that many of us were facing similar issues, which was comforting, and I benefited from many alternative views about Pe Stop from the other leaders
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