We support the Pomeranian Team for Women and the Pink Box campaign

Do you know that the Pomeranian Voivodeship Board has a Pomeranian Team for Women? This advisory and consultative body, chaired by Jolanta Szydłowska, President of the Management Board of the Gdańsk Foundation for Management Development, was established in 2021. Its creation is related to the implementation of the Pomeranian Voivodeship Development Strategy 2030, which assumes the promotion of equality and social inclusion of all inhabitants of the region, regardless of gender, race, religion, worldview and other factors.

The most important task of the Pomeranian Team for Women’s Empowerment is to raise public awareness of the equal treatment of women in terms of work, pay and career advancement. PZdsK monitors and analyses the needs related to equal professional and economic opportunities for women. Importantly, the team analyses the activity of organisations, local governments and other entities in the field of equality practices. It develops comprehensive information on the situation in the region in terms of equal rights for women and men, identifies barriers to be overcome, recommends systems for promoting equality practices and policies in this area. In addition, the team’s work involves establishing cooperation and exchanging good practices with other bodies and institutions conducting similar activities. More about the Team. Women…

In May this year. the team provided the Board of the Pomeranian Voivodeship with a list of issues and areas of significant importance for women and equality between women and men. The document called ” Cheat Sheet for Women” is a list of issues of key importance for a better life, safety and health for women and for equal rights for women and men.

In June 2023, the team presented recommendations to local authorities on actions to counteract menstrual exclusion. He also addressed his position to Pomeranian companies and institutions, thus supporting the m.in. colleagues from the Youth Assembly of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. We encourage you, our Residents, to join the simple but very important initiative, already known more widely as the “Pink Box”.

The first such box appeared in Wrocław at the end of 2019 at the local Women’s Rights Centre. Today, they are all over Poland, but there are still too few of them. Pink boxes filled with sanitary pads and tampons are a concrete help for women in this aspect of their physiology, which is still talked about half-heartedly or not talked about at all. There are at least several dozen of them in the Tri-City at the moment and more are still appearing. As part of its cooperation with UNICEF , Gdańsk has acquired over a thousand pink boxes, which can already be seen in schools and non-governmental organizations. You can find them in aid centres, clubs or cafes, in libraries, hospitals, clinics, museums (e.g. in Gdynia). Check out the map of pink boxes…

It’s time for us to check if we also have them in our companies and offices! It is worth getting involved in this action, because according to the first reports in Poland on Including. menstrual poverty, prepared for the Kulczyk Foundation:

one in five Polish women does not have money to buy hygiene products necessary for menstruation,
almost 40 per cent. Women from poorer households had to give up the purchase of hygiene products in favor of other expenses,
almost 60 per cent. students had to ask someone to buy tampons or sanitary pads because they didn’t have their own.
21 percent. had to leave school/university to get hygiene products,
On the other hand, 10 per cent , due to the lack of tampons or sanitary pads, stayed at home.