By Eva Marie Carney, The Kwek Society
Realizing the problem and forming the solution
In 2017, I read a story about girls on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota missing school because they could not afford period supplies. I thought that this was something that only happened far away – in resource-poor countries. I was grateful that the story was shining a light on this horrific situation, and it woke up the feminist and activist in me. It was clear these students needed help. I decided to help them, and I suspected they were not the only Indigenous students needing help. After my research confirmed that “period poverty” is a problem across the United States, among Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, and that no group was addressing it among Native students, I felt obligated to help my Indigenous relatives and their classmates. That’s because I’m a dual citizen of the United States and my Native Nation, the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and Indigenous students missing school because they didn’t have period care items was not something I could tolerate as a relative.
So I started The Kwek Society, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Kwek means women in my Potawatomi language. My only experience working for a nonprofit was a brief college interlude working for a veterans’ rights group, I certainly hadn’t created a nonprofit from scratch — at the time I was a securities lawyer and now work as a humanitarian immigration lawyer. But together with a few passionate supporters, I set to work. Fast forward to late 2023 and I’m proud to report that The Kwek Society is governed by a nine-person Board of Directors and seven of those nine women are also Indigenous. I serve as its executive director.
Adding encouragement and education to every bag
We could drop ship pallets of pads and tampons and say, “mission accomplished.” But, for us, addressing period poverty is not just about getting period care out to the communities we serve. Many Indigenous communities share teachings about moon time that center young menstruators as powerful and important to the whole. We collect those teachings from community members and share them with the students we support. (You can find these, and references to related books and films, on our website.) We share these teachings to empower students and encourage their feelings of connectedness to Indigenous ways of knowing. We also very intentionally communicate the message that moon time is to be celebrated when we give students our gifts of beautiful, hand-sewn moon time bags that are made for us by fabulous volunteers. In addition to period supplies, the moon time bags hold an information card. The front of the card reprints a portion of a poem about the moon that celebrates life and the connectedness of all earth’s inhabitants. The poem, Remember, is by Mvskoke Nation citizen and 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States Joy Harjo. We hope that the students find the poem encouraging and then look for and read the full poem. The back of the card directs students to the part of our website that collects moon time teachings and also links to educational materials health and safety-related resources.
Celebrating your moon time
Students frequently ask, Why are people we don’t know sewing these pretty bags for us and getting us these nice pads, tampons and liners? Our reply, which we ask the trusted adults at their schools to share with them is: Because you have a lot of aunties out there who care about you, even if we don’t know you. We know that what’s happening with your maturing body is something to celebrate. You are our relative and we want to give you high-quality supplies that make you feel good about your moon time. You are part of our community and we are excited to celebrate your moon time with you.
It’s important for readers to know that period poverty is a problem that is not just a problem in Indigenous communities. The research shows that period poverty is all too common across the U.S. because so many households do not earn enough to afford basic needs. But Indigenous communities experience poverty at disproportionate rates due to U.S. government policies that took our land, and displaced and dispersed us. We believe that every Indigenous person has the right to products of good quality that are a joy to use during their moon time. You can learn more and discover all the ways you can join in our efforts at https://kweksociety.org/support/. Migwetch. Thank you.
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