Impact During Covid-19

Dignity is a women’s well being initiative championing period equity and proudly supporting our community through Covid-19.

As a social enterprise, impact is the heart of what we do. Dignity currently supports over 130 schools youth and community groups nationwide including, all 26 teen parent colleges with our Buy One Give One initiative with our corporate partners such as ANZ, Xero, and Cigna. 

Over the last few years there have been many reports of students missing out on school because of a lack of access to period products. Factors such as cost and stigma have meant that not only do some students go without, but many have been managing their periods by make-shifting items out of unhygienic and ineffective products such as newspapers and rags. We know that many families are making the difficult choice between putting dinner on the table and buying period products. 

We are already seeing the impact of financial hardship in our communities from Covid-19.  A third of the New Zealand population are now receiving support from the government, and the number of people living in poverty is increasing every day. 

Dignity is an essential service and over the lock down, thanks to the continued support of our corporate partners we have been able to Give over 700 boxes of period products to schools and community groups in need, including The Wellington City Mission and Challenge 2000 to include in their parcels of food and essential items for people experiencing hardship in the local community. 

With the majority of our corporate partners working from home during lock down we have had to adapt our business model and launched a Give Two Boxes initiative. A number of our corporate partners. AMP, Advice First, Cigna. Yellow and Russel McVeaugh donated their total monthly order during lock down while their staff were working from home.

Tracey Taylor, Chief Experience Officer at Yellow explains, “We’re proud to support Dignity, a social movement that helps young Kiwi women have access to sanitary products.  Every time we purchase products through Dignity, the equivalent is gifted to a school or community centre. The need for these products doesn’t diminish through lock down and neither will our support.

As an individual you can also purchase our Give Two boxes online and gift 2 boxes to be  given to people in the community experiencing period poverty.

To date we have had 294 boxes donated from both individuals and our corporate partners via our Give Two Boxes initiative alone.

Feedback from one of our Give partners Paula Hay “Awesome. The work you do is absolutely essential!! Our school supplies were cleared out after the lock down was announced - we tried to send our young people home with all the products they would need for a month. Thank you Dignity!!  

 You can support our Give Two Boxes initiative on our website www.dignitynz.com