“PERIOD. End of Sentence”

Viewing of the Oscar winning documentary film

Q&A with executive producer Sophie Ascheim ’22

Packing party

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

7:30 p.m. on the Yale Campus (the location will be shared with registrants)

Join us for an event that combines education, community service, and the opportunity to hear from and mingle with an Oscar winner and other talented Yale undergraduates. We will learn about ways to reduce period poverty and period stigma both globally and in the New Haven community!  As Sophie Ascheim ’22 found out when she was in high school, girls in the developing world who lack clean menstrual supplies often develop infections and other health problems and drop out of school.  Along with teachers and parents, Sophie and two friends started a nonprofit, The Pad Project, and made a movie to change this. “Period. End of Sentence” shows how making low-cost pads with a specially designed machine empowered women and improved the economy in a rural Indian village. Earlier  this year the film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

But period poverty is not exclusive to  the developing world.  Homeless and poor girls and women in the United States, including New Haven, also lack the products they need to handle their periods confidently.  After viewing the documentary and engaging in a Q&A with Sophie, we will  have a “packing party,” in which we will assemble kits of menstrual products that will be donated to New Haven agencies. 

We’ll make the kits alongside members of [email protected], a student chapter of the national PERIOD organization, the largest youth-run nonprofit in women’s health.  [email protected] members will order the menstrual supplies ahead of time from the national organization.  There is a $5 cash registration fee, to be collected at the door, that will reimburse the Yale chapter for obtaining the supplies. Donations larger than $5 are most welcome.

Prior to viewing the film, we’ll have an optional, pay-as-you-go dinner at Yorkside Pizza at 6:00 p.m.  The event itself will start at 7:30 p.m. at a location to be announced to registrants.

Please RSVP by October 30^th using the RSVP on this site below. 

If you will also join before for dinner, please email Suzanne Solensky at [email protected]

Registration is limited to 100 people.

Co-sponsored by by Yale Alumni Nonprofit Alliance – New England (YANA), Yale School of Nursing Alumni Association, and 1stGenYale.

"The strongest creature on earth is not the elephant, not the tiger, but the girl." 

(Murugananthem, the inventor of the specially designed pad machine)