![\"Countdown](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/DEP-018-UComm-Commencement-Graphic-FY22_bookish-300x76.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWhen Sabrina Uva \u201922 (CLAS) considers which project she\u2019ll get involved with next, she asks herself whether its end goal would make life better and fairer for whomever it targets.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does come down to equity, breaking down bias,\u201d she says. \u201cI just believe everyone should have access to basic needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That has been the driver for the UConn Stamford<\/a> student who\u2019s graduating next month as an honors scholar with a major in Human Development and Family Sciences<\/a> and now must decide between a job offer at a virtual reality company in New York City and acceptance to UConn\u2019s HDFS Ph.D. program.<\/p>\n She wants to continue advocacy work \u2013 which she pursued at UConn as founder of Huskies for Charity<\/a> and president of the Stamford Student Government Association<\/a> — yet continue to use the technology skills she gained while working at the Stamford Startup Studio<\/a>. There, she says, she brought with her a social science mindset that frequently questioned how projects and decisions would impact families or society.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve just found a wide variety of experiences at UConn that I never imagined I would do. I get involved in everything I\u2019m passionate about, and UConn gave me that ability to tap into these different networks,\u201d she says. \u201cAll of these experiences have led me to where I am today.\u201d<\/p>\n On March 9 she went before the Connecticut General Assembly’s Public Health Committee, testifying in favor of HB 5272 An Act Concerning Menstrual Products<\/a>, which would require that pads and tampons be available to those who need them, when they need them, and without a cost.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether it\u2019s food, whether it\u2019s access to menstrual products, whether it\u2019s having the ability to fully participate in school, no one should have to worry about where they\u2019re going to get their essentials,\u201d she says. \u201cI believe menstrual products are a basic need similar to anything else in the bathroom, like soap and toilet paper.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the last few years, the Stamford native sought donations to get period necessities to students, but she says that was just a short-term fix to a continuing problem. She soon started working with University leadership to pilot a program set to roll out this spring in Stamford that makes those products available in bathrooms.<\/p>\n Passage of the House legislation would widen the scope of her intent and make products available at York Correctional Institution in Niantic, in middle and high schools around the state, at institutions of higher education, and in emergency shelters or transitional housing that receive state grant funding.<\/p>\n The bill\u2019s public hearing last month drew comments from nearly 80 individuals<\/a>, including Uva<\/a> and Asija Qyteza<\/a> \u201824 (CLAS), president of the UConn Waterbury Associated Student Government<\/a>. This is the second time such a bill has been raised, coming up in 2020 and again this session at the impetus of Rep. Kate Farrar, D-West Hartford. The 2020 session was cut short at the start of the pandemic, and the bill didn\u2019t move forward.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t think this will end period poverty, but it\u2019s one step toward reducing stigma, one step toward providing access to students and really understanding that period poverty is a widespread problem,\u201d Uva says. \u201cIt really affects the ability to fully participate in all aspects of work, school, and life. We really need to shed more light on period poverty because we don\u2019t want more people to feel any shame about periods and we don\u2019t want that to influence their mental health and well-being.\u201d<\/p>\n Mental health is a focus for Uva, who is looking at the results of a campus-wide survey she put out to see how activism affects the mental health and academic outcomes of students \u2013 research she plans to continue after graduation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a bunch of young advocates at UConn. Being part of a movement is really important for people and including young people at the table is equally as important,” she says. “I really am excited about the increase in young people running for office. Understanding the importance of civic engagement, it really helps you. It\u2019s important to get youth involved because we\u2019re the next generation that these bills and laws are going to directly affect.\u201d<\/p>\n She adds, \u201cUltimately, I want to be able to create a community initiative where I could put all of my experiences together and go back to the community of Stamford.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ‘I get involved in everything I\u2019m passionate about, and UConn gave me that ability to tap into these different networks’ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":184278,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2229,1715,2192,156,2235,174,2306],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2368],"class_list":["post-183312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commencement","category-community-impact","category-fairfield-county","category-profile","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-stamford","category-uconn-voices"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 07:17:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183312"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184328,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183312\/revisions\/184328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/184278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183312"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=183312"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=183312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}