Celebrating Moon Times: Flipping the Script on Period Poverty and Standard Puberty Education

Class Experience Level

Beginner, Intermediate

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Eva Marie Carney will give an overview her work with The Kwek Society. She founded the nonprofit in 2018 after learning that Indigenous students in the United States were regularly missing school while on their “moon times” because they did not have period supplies. Informed by her work with schools and community-based organizations across North America, she will discuss the reach and impact of “period poverty” -- or inadequate access to menstrual hygiene products. She also will explain how The Kwek Society stresses “dignity and celebration” over feelings of shame and embarrassment in its work, reframing period care needs and empowering menstruators.

Speaker Information

Eva Marie Carney is the Founder and Executive Director of The Kwek Society, a nonprofit that provides puberty education to Indigenous students and period care to Indigenous students and community members across the United States and Canada’s Ontario province. Since its inception, The Kwek Society has distributed close to 1.3 million period care items and almost 16,000 puberty education books and signature “moon time bags” to address first periods.

Eva is a dual citizen of the United States and the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and lives in Arlington, Virginia. In addition to her work for The Kwek Society, she is a Member of the Legislature of the Shawnee, Oklahoma-based Citizen Potawatomi Nation and works as a humanitarian immigration lawyer through Just Neighbors, a nonprofit law firm. She is one of a dozen Expert Panelists providing input on the Menstrual Health section of the online platform, Our Bodies Ourselves Today, which provides up-to-date, trustworthy, and inclusive information about health, sexuality, and well-being. Eva earlier was a partner in a Washington, D.C. law firm and an Assistant General Counsel with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Eva graduated from the University of San Francisco with a BA in history and received her JD from Stanford Law School.

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Objectives:

1. Understand how the lack of period supplies impacts school attendance of Indigenous students while on their "moon times".

2. Discuss the reach and impact of "period poverty" -- or inadequate access to menstrual hygiene products.