Stories

Bleedin Saor documentary

Across the world, many women and girls are unable to afford or access period products, known as ‘period poverty’. Combined with stigma, this can lead to girls missing school with serious consequences for their futures and life outcomes.
Staff and students from Edinburgh Napier University have formed the Bleedin Saor collective to tackle the stigma of menstruation and make period products accessible for all. An inter-disciplinary project combining film and television production, product design, publishing, event management and marketing, they have produced a documentary film, Bleeding Free, about period poverty, period dignity and Scotland’s role in challenging the stigma of menstruation. The film follows Scottish students campaigning and creating change, while meeting inspirational community leaders, policy makers and educators at home and in Uganda where gaining access to menstrual education and resources can be life changing. The film tracks the development of Scotland becoming the first country in the world to legislate for free access to period products for all women, girls and menstruators.
Bleedin Saor are now looking to organise screenings of the film at U!REKA partner institutions to help foster discussion and action around this important issue. More information about the film, and organising a screening, can be found at:

The collective visited Uganda in 2019 as it took its campaign to East Africa to join the global efforts in the menstrual movement. The 10-day trip saw the group meet with and interview members of a number of organisations within the country who are fighting for better period product provision, gender equality and women’s’ rights.

Closer to home, the documentary also captures the work of the collective and its three designers – Sam Calder, Hannah Stevens and Brogan Henderson – as they worked with the University and the Hey Girls social enterprise to design new period product dispensers.

The dispensers have been used by Edinburgh Napier to make free period products accessible to all who need them across the University and will soon be installed in schools, colleges and universities across the country. The free products at Edinburgh Napier have been made available thanks to Scottish Government funding.

The entire Bleedin’ Saor project has been co-ordinated by School of Arts and Creative Industries’ placements officer, Lindsay Morgan and lecturers Dr. Kirsten Macleod and Ruth Cochrane. The film and the broader Bleedin Saor campaign was the winner of the 2021 Times Higher Education Award for Outstanding Contribution to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

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