Rochelle Courtenay On Period Poverty And Creating Dignified Community Movements
Rochelle Courtenay is the Founder and Managing Director of Share the Dignity, a national charity founded in 2015 with the mission to ensure that everyone is afforded the dignity in life that so many of us take for granted.
Share the Dignity brings dignity to those who menstruate who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness, domestic violence, or poverty through the distribution of period products and #ItsintheBag donations filled with essential items. The charity is powered by volunteers, and through
Rochelle’s contagious spirit over 6,000 volunteers have jumped on board to make a difference. Share the Dignity has collected and distributed over 4 million period products through multiple initiatives across Australia. As well as holding national collections, Rochelle is passionate about advocating for change and creating long-term solutions.
Rochelle has received accolades for her work including Finalist Australian of the Year, Cosmopolitan Humanitarian of the Year and Pride of Australia.
Rochelle discusses how she has been a catalyst for combatting the shame, stigma and impact of period poverty across Australia and how they've made a profound difference through partnerships and creating movements.
Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)
[Sarah Ripper] - As Founder and the Managing Director of Share the Dignity, can you discuss this organisation, its purpose, and the impact it's generating?
[Rochelle Courtenay] - Back in 2015, I read an article saying there were 48,000 homeless women having to use socks, newspaper and wadded up toilet paper to deal with their period. I could not believe that was happening here in Australia, and I was really embarrassed I'd never thought about how people would deal with their period if they couldn't afford to. I just thought everyone had the luxury of being able to buy a packet of pads or tampons when they got their period. When I researched this, it wasn't the first article to ever be written, but there was very little information on the internet about what we now call period poverty. I just knew, like I know now, that there isn't a Australian who wouldn't be empathetic to hearing another person is using somebody else's socks, newspaper, or toilet paper to deal with their period. Also, it wasn't that hard to fix. It was one of those problems where I thought, '“I do not want my daughters reading about this in 10 years thinking, ‘why has no one done anything about it?’" I just jumped in and thought, "let's create a solution, because every sister is looking after another sister." There's no way in any bathroom in Australia, if you needed a pad or a tampon that there wouldn't be an absolute stranger who would give that to you. That's what we needed to do, and that's been my biggest driver, making sure everybody knows about it because we are part of the solution.
Could you share your background and what led you to being where you are today?
I lived in a home which had a lot of violence in it; I had a brother who was quite violent to me all my life. It just replicated throughout my life to a point where that trauma has had so many ripple effects that continue to this day. When people say to me, "you're so empathetic," I completely understand how a drug addict could end up being a drug addict or how someone is experiencing homelessness, because all these things have had a path leading up to them.
The one thing I hate more than anything in the world is people judging, because you never know what path another person has taken.
I met this incredible young woman in a domestic violence shelter with a brand new baby boy. We were able to give her period products in one of our It’s in the Bag bags, because she had nothing. In fact, she was stealing maternity pads from the supermarket to be able to deal with her blood because she needed to save her money for formula and baby items. We ended up chatting, and she talked about that she was a young girl of eight and her mother sold her for sex in her home.
She ended up being homeless at the age of 12, but she knew to steal somebody else's socks from the laundromat to deal with her period, even though no one even told her about periods. She went from living on the streets to then living with someone who was 35 when she was 15 years old and entering another domestic violence relationship. Now people can judge all they like, but you don't know the story behind everybody.
Everybody has a story, and so while I hate the word hate, I really dislike judgment of people, because you just don't know what they've been through.
On the flip side of that, I remember meeting this woman and I was the person who was judging. I remember meeting this beautiful woman who had implants, and she was completely beautiful. I judged her on her beauty and what she was wearing. When I got to know her, she talked about the sexual abuse she received as a young child, and because of this she always wanted boobs, so no one confused her for being a young girl. It took her mind away from that. You never know the story behind people and what makes them choose to do what they do. That's why I just say let people do them, and you just worry about doing the best version of yourself.
How has learning these lessons been pivotal in exploring and expanding the work you do with your team?
I don't know if it has an impact, but I absolutely know that I'm surrounded by incredible people who wanted to join my passion to make this difference. I wanted everybody to feel empowered, and I always call this The People's Charity. I don't make these decisions on my own. We have incredible volunteers and I run everything past them. My board is also volunteers, and I don't ever profess to have all the answers. But, I also don't take no for an answer when it comes to answering how do we solve a problem? If I say, "let's solve this," and you say, "no, we can't do it," then you are wrong. I have this dogged determination to make a difference. While we do our collection drives in March and August, our It’s in the Bag program (which is like my favourite child), and our dignity vending machines, there was also the time where at Share the Dignity we paid for the funerals of those who were killed by domestic violence.
These people were staying in morgues for months because their families couldn't afford to pay for the funerals. I thought to myself where is the dignity in begging through the radio or on GoFundMe to just get enough funds to pay for funerals? Whilst that was not in our repertoire of what we needed to do, there was no way I could jog past that and continue. We no longer need to do that after we paid for about 17 funerals. That was probably the hardest two years of my life, because every one of those stories were heartbreaking. I went to every Attorney General in every state and said, "there is absolutely no way that people should be in a morgue for three months while their family suffers." This is a government role, where do we create a checklist of things to do when we failed them miserably to the point they no longer have their mother, father or baby. How do we make sure that this doesn't happen? I'm proud of saying I went to every Attorney General, and with one Attorney General I remember saying, "do you want this on the front page of the paper? Because if you don't make the difference, we will." I couldn't jog past it and I just knew that had to happen. We paid for the funerals, and it was a hard thing to do. We funded them, but we couldn't go out on Facebook and say, "look at what we did," because we needed the family to have dignity and respect to move on to the next chapter. We made sure they were supported by the services that needed to support them. I'm proud to say now that in every state this does not happen anymore. It's still in our constitution to offer these services, but we haven't had to do it for years.
After that, I am very clear that there are thousands of issues out there that need to be solved, but I need to stay in my lane. I am one of those people who wants to fix everything, and I want to make sure everyone gets help.
Do you know what would help? If everyone got help to deal with the trauma that happens to them as children.
Then, they wouldn't end up being drug addicts, alcoholics or having mental health issues. If we fixed that, our jails would probably be empty. We would have less crime; we'd be able to live in a much better world. But that to me is a problem that's much bigger than I am, and I just need to sit back and help eradicate period poverty. It’s something that I can fix, it is something that I can make sure everyone can donate too. When Woolworths came on board and put collection boxes in every store, that was amazing. Everybody goes to the shopping centre every week. Everyone goes to get groceries. We made it super simple, but we also only collect for two months during our dignity drives, because we wanted people to have a call to action.
How did you grow partnerships, and can you tell us more about Share the Dignity's advocacy work?
I'm going to tell you the story about Bunnings. We do three collections a year. During March and August, collection boxes go out in thousands of locations around Australia. It's not just the fact they are collecting the products, these places also using their voice to help amplify the fact period poverty exists in Australia. People didn't talk about periods before this, so the advocacy work we've done in that space I'm proud of. When I first started the charity, you could not find a picture of men holding packets of pads and tampons. You can now Google it; there are boys at basketball camps and playing soccer, and there are girls at netball holding tampons. There are men in ATO offices in Canberra holding packets of tampons as well! That's one of my massive achievements, and yet it's just a significant little piece that's important.
If we could remove the shame and stigma around menstruation, we would have less people suffering with endometriosis. We would have more people trying to fall pregnant before they're desperately needing to fall pregnant. It has so many ripple effects, and considering the boys who don't get educated end up being somebody's boss, husband or father, it’s is terrible we're not educating them.
It's ridiculous, so I'm looking forward to that advocacy piece we are continuing to do, where we've rolled out access to sanitary items in all schools in Australia. We're halfway there, but we are also making sure that children in schools are educated. When educating boys and girls, we're not sending boys out of the rooms. Then, we're also working with Indigenous Australians and migrants to work out how do we educate them in culturally respectful ways, so we can live in world where if you've got endometriosis, you can walk up to your boss and feel comfortable in him understanding that today you're just not at your best.
In March and August, we do collection drives and our It's in the Bag program. For It’s in the Bag, we ask everyday Australians to fill a handbag with life's essentials; things like shampoo, conditioner, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, soap, and sanitary items. They're only limited by their bag size, imagination, and budget. I swear I’ve owned 7,000,422 hair ties in my life, but I can never find one in my handbag! I must always have a Chapstick in my car, bedside drawer, desk and handbag, because I always want one. We make people start thinking about the things that you would want should you need to flee domestic violence.
This is a great story I will share. The very first year for It’s in the Bag, I was cleaning out my bathroom cupboard on a rainy Sunday. I had this great idea for It’s in the Bag. I had no infrastructure in place at all; I'm just the idea’s person. I put it on our Share the Dignity page, and it went viral. We collected 24,000 bags that very first year from volunteers’ verandas, and we only had about 200 volunteers at that stage. It was incredible to take them those bags to charities and hear them talk about how they always have gifts for kids, but they've never had gifts for mums. To hear them say, "oh my God, I gave this to Sabrina, and this is the first Christmas gift she's had since she was eight and sent into foster care.” Just hearing those stories was remarkable. The next year we fancied it up, did it a little bit better, went out to all the people who collected for the drives, like hairdressing salons, beauty salons, MP's offices, and had 110,000 bags collected. In some of the beauty salons, we would pick up the bags at night and then ring the next morning saying, "the beauty salon's full again, I can't even do treatments. Can you send somebody?" Obviously, we were all working, and we were volunteer based for the first four years which made it exceptionally hard. It made me start thinking about where do I want to store these bags? I spoke to Westfield, and it wasn't going to happen with them.
I put it onto our Share the Dignity FaceBook page and said, "we want collection points in every Bunnings all over Australia, can every woman in Australia tag Bunnings?" Bunnings rang me the next day, and now we are celebrating our sixth year having our collection points at Bunnings.
It was very cheeky of us, but it worked. Bunnings had space, and everyone knows where their Bunnings is. I love working with Bunnings, and the Bunnings staff every year vote to redo Share the Dignity projects. They are the ‘people business’ of Australia for me. We also partnered with Talk Revolution five years ago to bring about Period Talk, which are these six sassy kids (two of whom are boys) talking about periods. What's a menstrual cup? I never knew my whole life what a menstrual cup was. Imagine a world where young girls know what a menstrual cup is and then they don't have to worry about it for forever, nor do their parents have to, and it's great for the environment? Not that it's right for everybody, but having the knowledge and ability to make your own choices is what it's about.
As a talented leader with incredible experience, what are some actionable steps and learnings you would share with change makers looking to expand their impact?
I wish I had of known collecting data was so important at the beginning.
We went a million miles an hour. We went from a local organisation (which wasn't even a charity, it was just a Facebook group I'd set up on the 1st of March 2015) to a national charity in three months’ time; a public benevolent institution. We just progressed at a million miles an hour. No one ever said, "you need to capture this data for this particular reason," early on. To be honest, we wouldn't have had the funds or the backup knowledge, but I wish that was top of mind at the beginning. I wish that someone sat down and gave me a talk on how to measure social impact. We can't retrospectively go back and measure it now.
But for me also, now that I know, having balance days where you are not a hundred percent running the business is important. When you have balance days, you're the best version of you.
I've only started to introduce balance days now, which for me means take myself out of it to do the things that bring me joy, like going for a walk. Just have time to be you, because that brings a better version of you to the table, not a tired, wrecked version that some people must be.
What are the challenges and opportunities you see in the space you are in?
Last year we held a global period poverty forum. We at Share the Dignity brought together 45 leaders from around the world working in this space, and that's never happened before. It has happened in some countries, but never with everyone from around the world. We all came together for three days to listen, learn and connect.
If I want to speak to somebody in Scotland now, then I've got a connection there. We're just listening and learning how to create a world where period poverty doesn't exist?
Menstrual equity to me is now the next level. Menstrual equity is about while we can give period products to people, how do we also make sure we educate boys and girls? How do we educate workplaces to be better, because ultimately there is a massive gap where period education did not exist. How do we remove that shame and stigma? How do we all be part of a bigger conversation globally?
What books or resources would you recommend to our listeners?
Personally, I have read every Brené Brown book, but I'm continuously learning time management skills. If you ask any leader, even if I sat around the room with my staff and asked what do you need more of, they would all say time. Having read all of Kate Christie's time management books has been the biggest game changer for me. We all have inevitably the same 24 hours in a day. It doesn't matter who you are, they're the same 24 hours, so what's the best use of your time and how can you best spend that? For me, I now have the best recipe of life, and that's all come from reading Kate Christie's books. I would suggest those books are in everybody's repertoire, because they also teach you to delegate effectively.
Delegating is hard for leaders, especially at the beginning. It's a skill you must learn as well. Understand what you are good at and what's the best use of your time.
To finish off, can you please quickly share more about the Axe The Tax campaign?
Can you believe we have paid GST on sanitary items for over 20 years? When I found this out, I could not believe it. I didn't know this, I was so ignorant, and when we were putting together the period packs that go into our vending machines, it became apparent there was GST included. I thought, "that is not right." Long story short, we filed a federal petition that required one hundred thousand signatures online in 30 days. It was the most signed petition online Australia had ever seen. 120,000 people signed that petition. It went before the Parliament, and the Greens and Labour parties were on board straight away. The Liberals were saying, "we're not removing GST from any items, we'll actually be adding them to more." I remember having a conversation with Greg Hunt at six o'clock at night. He was in the back of his car. Greg Hunt was our Federal Minister for Health. I said to him quite simply, "you have the ability to remove this GST yourself as the Federal Health Minister. I would like to point out that if this is not passed, we as Australian women will be lodging a federal class action lawsuit to regain our money back for the GST.” They were classifying them as a part of the Therapeutics Association Act, yet also deeming them as inclusive of GST. That didn’t make sense. Ten days later, we got the phone call that the policy would be going through. It was a massive achievement, and we have as Australian women saved over $30 million in GST on sanitary items we should never have paid in the first place. The story goes much deeper than that of course; that's a very small snapshot of it. I spoke to more politicians than I ever care to mention that year, but we did it! It was beautiful giving everybody the power to have a voice, and I will remind you that our politicians can only be politicians because we as constituents pay for them. Every email you send must be responded to, so we got a groundswell of people to send that email. You just copy and pasted a template from our website, so we just kept on regurgitating what needed to be done to be a part of the change. I didn't do it alone, I just got everybody else to be as enraged as I was. Ultimately, from doing that and receiving media attention that year was how Woolworths heard about me. They came to me and said, "we want to work with you, we want to be part of your championing to end period poverty in Australia." I didn't even go to them; they came to us. They are very progressive, and we love working with Woolworths. It makes it super easy for everyone to donate and their voice amplifies our mission.
