Menstrual Poverty is Real in the UK and Europe: Why Menstrual Care Kits Matter

Pads, tampons, liners. They are not a luxury or an optional extra. Yet across the UK and Europe, millions of women and people who menstruate go without them, improvise with whatever is to hand, or stay home until their period ends. Period poverty is one of the least talked-about forms of hardship in wealthy countries, and that silence is a big part of why it continues.

One of the Most Overlooked Needs in Our Communities

Period products are usually just part of the weekly shop, so it is easy to assume the same is true for everyone. For many women, girls and people who menstruate across the UK and Europe, it is not, and because periods are still rarely talked about, that need often goes unseen. It can affect anyone, including people we work alongside every day.

A 2026 ActionAid UK poll found that more than one in ten (11%) women and people who menstruate in the UK had struggled to afford period products for themselves or a dependent in the last year. Of those who could not afford them, 22% said they stayed at home as a result.

Behind that number are missed shifts, missed classes and missed time with friends, all because a basic product was out of reach. Many find ways through, often with the help of charities and period poverty organizations who know their communities best. It is a quiet need, and one that is easy to help with once we see it.

A Europe-Wide Reality, Not a Local One

This is not just a UK story. In 2025, the French charity Règles Élémentaires commissioned OpinionWay to survey 5,008 adults across all 27 EU countries. Among women who had their period in the past year, one in three (34%) had gone without buying the period products they needed at least once for financial reasons. Overall, 42% had been affected by period poverty in the previous 12 months. Read the full survey.

In France, the 2026 Ifop barometer for Dons Solidaires found that 11% of women who have periods, or who have a daughter who does, have used makeshift alternatives to period products because of cost, and 13% sometimes do not have enough period products for themselves or their daughter.

Why the Cost of Living Hits Periods So Hard

Period products are a repeat cost, every month, for decades. When rent, energy and food bills rise, they compete directly with everything else in the household budget.

The trade-off often runs both ways. In the same EU survey, even among women who had not gone without period products, 13% said they had given up another everyday essential so they could afford them. For families already stretched by the cost of living, there is rarely an easy choice.

Why a Menstrual Care Kit Matters

A period should never decide whether someone goes to work, school or a job interview. A menstrual care kit puts a supply of products directly into the hands of people who need them, through charities and community partners they already trust.

Unlike our standard hygiene kits, CTW Events menstrual care kits are custom builds, with pads, liners, tampons and other essentials. Once your event is booked, CTW Events matches the kits to a charity partner that supports women, girls and people who menstruate and needs the products. Kits can also carry a handwritten note of encouragement from the person who packed them.

Kits never replace the funding and advocacy work of period poverty charities. They complement it, adding practical products to support that is already in place.

How Your Next Event Becomes the Place Where Support Happens

Your organization already brings people together at conferences, offsites, kick-offs and office days, and most agendas already include time for connection or team building. With CTW Events, that time becomes corporate volunteering with a clear purpose: menstrual care kits built by your people for women, girls and people who menstruate in your community.

A menstrual care kit experience also opens a useful conversation at work, about a subject many colleagues have never discussed openly. And because it happens inside an event you are already running, people take part in work time. That matters, because work commitments are the most common barrier to volunteering in England, cited by 51% of people in the DCMS Community and Engagement Survey 2025/26.

How a CTW Events menstrual care kit experience works

1. You tell us about your eventShare the date, the city, roughly how many people and the format. A Breakout brings the whole group together in one agenda slot. A Walkthrough lets people drop in across the day.
2. We find the right charity partnerCTW Events matches your event with a charity or community partner that needs the kits.
3. We bring everythingCTW Events sources the products, ships the materials and sets up the build stations.
4. Your people buildTeams assemble kits and write personal notes. Your people bring the care. We bring everything else.
5. Kits reach the partnerFinished kits are handed over to the receiving partner, with CTW Events supporting the handover.
6. You share the resultEveryone leaves knowing exactly how many kits they built together and where those kits are going.

Delivered by the Team Behind Kit Experiences Across Europe

Menstrual care kits use the same end-to-end delivery behind CTW Events kit experiences across the UK and Europe:

Planning Tips for Event, People and CSR Leads

• Leave the matching to us. CTW Events finds a charity partner that needs menstrual care products, so every kit your people build has somewhere to go.
• Pick a meaningful moment. International Women’s Day on 8 March and Menstrual Hygiene Day on 28 May are natural fits, though the need is there all year.
• Frame it with facts, not pity. One clear statistic and a respectful brief help everyone understand who the kits are for. Remember that some colleagues may have experienced period poverty themselves.
• Make it inclusive. Invite every colleague to take part. Period poverty affects families, not only the people who menstruate.
• Celebrate together. Share the number of kits your people supported and what the partner can now offer the people it works with, so everyone can see the difference in their community.