The Hidden Crisis of Period Poverty There is a kind of poverty that does not make headlines. It is not widely discussed in the news or debated in parliaments. Many people who could help have simply never had to think about it. It hides in silence, shame, and in a girl’s decision to stay home from school one week out of every month because she has nothing to protect her dignity. I have stood in villages in Kenya and looked into the eyes of women and girls living this reality.

At 83, Mama Florence has spent more than three decades doing what most would call impossible. From family land on the edge of Lake Victoria in Orongo Village, Kenya, she has built a lifeline for orphans, widows, and families with nowhere else to turn. Before this began, she was a primary school teacher. When she retired in 1989, her husband — the minister of their local church — gave her a piece of family land to start something new. That gift became the Orongo Village of Orp