Janie Hampton is the author of fifteen books including social history, biography, fiction and text books. She is an experienced speaker on television and radio, writes articles for newspapers and magazines and gives entertaining talks in theatres, colleges and at literary festivals.
Janie is also an international development and women’s health activist and looks for opportunities to meet people, create connections and motivate others. She is committed to the empowerment of vulnerable people and communities, especially young women in Africa. In 1991, she developed the British government policy on international reproductive health and her research led to practical strategies which remain government policy. She was shortlisted in 2012 for her work for the people of Malawi in the Tesco Mum of the Year Award. In 2014 she was asked to be Patron of the Malawi Association UK and in 2015 promoted a fundraising campaign for the thousands of people in Malawi made homeless by flooding.
In 2016 she founded the World Menstrual Network and since then she has concentrated on improving menstrual health policies and practice. With The Cup Effect, Dorcas International and Girl Guides of Malawi, Hampton organised a feasibility study in schools, a refugee camp and a national park which demonstrated that students and mothers in Malawi want to use menstrual cups. Using Hampton’s model, ActionAid Malawi has begun a national menstrual cup programme. Her career has taken her from living in rural villages in Africa, to meeting the Queen in Buckingham Palace.
Janie is a member of The History Girls, a group of award-winning women writers of historical fiction and non-fiction. Every day of the month a different History Girl blogs on any historical topic from the Stone Age onwards. Janie blogs on the 27th of every month. Here is one for World Menstrual Day and one about Janie’s great aunt Felicia Skene.
Here is an article by Janie for the ideas website Aeon called The Taboo of Menstruation.
Janie writes obituaries such as this one about Dame Anne Warburton for the Independent; and this for The Guardian about Father Keble Prosser.
News
Working with The Cup Effect, Janie convened a panel of menstrual experts including Menstrual Health Hub, No More Taboo and Menstrual Matters International to present health recommendations as a Menstrual Manifesto to Plan International as part of their Because I am a Girl campaign. In March 2018, this was published as Break the Barriers, Girls Experience of Menstruation in the UK.
Janie’s book How the Girl Guides Won the War, about the contribution of Guides and Brownies to the Second World War and their role in 20th century feminist history, has been optioned by Lionsgate of Hollywood. The feature film will be produced by Ryan Christians of Marc Platt Productions