Charlotte Smith
UoN Once a Month was launched this year at UoN as a branch of the wider Once a Month campaign. The student-led project aims to tackle period poverty and help vulnerable women access the products they need. I caught up with project co-lead and president Sachi Kulkarni to find out more about the society.
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What is Once a Month all about?
Once a Month is a student volunteer project whereby volunteers meet/get together once a month to package sanitary products and other items that are then distributed to charities across Nottingham. It’s part of the effort to fight period poverty on a local level!
Why did you decide to get involved in taking on this issue?
I saw that the Manchester branch had advertised wanting to expand on the Facebook group “Gals Who Graduate”. I thought it was the perfect opportunity to give back to society, especially given how much COVID-19 has had a negative impact on many people.
it was insane how a developed, first-world country like the UK even had a problem like this
I read up about the statistics on period poverty, as I didn’t have much knowledge about the issue when it came to the UK and was absolutely shocked. To me, it was insane how a developed, first-world country like the UK even had a problem like this.
That’s when I knew that I wanted to be a part of Once a Month, and the rest is history!
What does your role involve?
As President and Project Co-Lead, I dabble in almost everything. To name a few, I oversee a lot of our daily activity, facilitate our package distribution (this involves purchasing product, distributing product to volunteers to package, picking up the packages and then distributing them to charities) and handle our admin work.
However, I’m very lucky to have a great team of Co-Leads and Volunteer Representatives who have helped so much in making Once a Month successful so far, and are the reason why the whole operation runs smoothly!
Our packing session resulted in a delivery of around 70 packages to Aidan House
What sort of things have taken place so far?
So far we’ve had one packing session and one fundraiser, thanks to COVID-19. Our fundraiser was a Charity Run and we’re so grateful to have reached both our targets (£500 and £1000 respectively).
Our packing session resulted in a delivery of around 70 packages to Aidan House – Framework, and we were fortunate enough to also get a massive donation of period products from Meadows Food bank!
What events are coming up?
We’ve got an exciting collaboration coming up with a small business by a University of Nottingham student (don’t want to reveal too much yet!) that will result in product donations for us, as well as hopefully one more fundraiser.
Also, we’re continuing our monthly packing sessions till the end of the academic year.
What would you say to someone who wants to get involved?
Keep a look out on our socials! We also have a Facebook Group that we’ll be using a lot more now, as we plan on opening up volunteer slots for packing in the next month.
Also, we’d love any donations or any sort of promotion on your personal social media if you believe in our cause!
Where can you go to find out more?
We’re on Instagram – @uon_onceamonth and Facebook – UoN Once a Month.
There’s also a Facebook Group that can be joined called Once a Month – University of Nottingham Student Led Project!
Charlotte Smith
Featured image courtesy of UoN Once A Month. Image credit @char.remodels via Instagram. No changes were made to this image.
In-article images courtesy of @uon_onceamonth via Instagram. No changes made to these images.
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